


By Any Other Name

by FunnyWings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Cop!Dean, Dean and Cas try to become legal guardians, F/F, F/M, Lawyer!Charlie, M/M, Married Dean and Cas, Societal Issues, Soul Mate AU, Vet!Amelia, Vet!Cas, lawyer!Sam, social prejudice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 18:57:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8068918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunnyWings/pseuds/FunnyWings
Summary: After a home invasion ends in the deaths of Amelia and James Novak, Dean and Castiel think the worst of their problems is going to be handling their grief and making sure their niece Claire adjusts to living with them. Unfortunately, despite both James' and Amelia's wills indicating they want to pass on guardianship to Dean and Cas in the event of their death, they are denied as legal guardians since they can not confirm they are a soul mated pair (each received a shot that prevented their soul mates name from appearing over their heart). After hearing this, they contact Charlie, a lawyer who promises to help them.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> So I've read a couple of soul mate AUs, and I thought I'd try my hand at writing one. Please let me know whether this is worth continuing.

There are some things you never want to happen. A call at two in the morning is one of them.

Dean groaned and hit Cas a couple of times, so he would answer his god damn phone. His husband was a vet, and that meant that every once in a while there were these kinds of emergency calls. Not that Dean resented the lost sleep after he’d had to work a fucking sixteen hour shift at the station. Not at all.

“Hey, Amelia,” Castiel muttered into the phone, still lying down and looking as though he were preparing himself for facing the cold morning air. Then his entire expression changed and he sat straight up.

“Cas, is something wrong?” Dean asked, but Castiel wasn’t listening to him. Instead he bolted out of their bed and started collecting his clothes, hastily putting the call on speaker as he shouted out questions at it.

“-critical condition. The police said it was a home invasion-“

“All of them?” Castiel asked, hating himself for asking the question, but thinking deep down he should have known if something bad was happening to Jimmy. He tripped and fumbled as he tried to get on his pants, and Dean had put together enough by now that he’d picked up the phone and started calmly and quietly getting all the information they needed before going over to a still frantic Castiel.

“Cas, baby, we’re going to the hospital okay?” he said, stopping Castiel’s hands from where they were trying to button up one of his shirts, the first one he had grabbed in his panic. He squeezed them and then did the buttons up for him before throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a shirt and then taking his keys out of the bowl by their front counter. Castiel was in the passenger seat within a heartbeat and saw Dean’s own stress when the speedometer hit 90 on the freeway.

They parked. They walked inside and Castiel told the front desk who they were looking for, and the nurse there frowned and then led them toward a small side room where another nurse was sat next to a sobbing fourteen year old. When she saw them walk in, she ran to Cas and threw her arms around him. Dean noticed where before there had been numbness in his husband’s expression had given way to answering tears and Castiel held Claire close and patted her back gently.

“They’re going to be okay, right?” Claire asked. Dean could see the way Castiel was starting to fall apart and instead of letting him answer that minefield of a question he started asking the nurse for an update loudly enough that both Novaks turned around to listen. The nurse said he’d get the doctor and disappeared. All there was to do was wait. So they did. Dean didn’t complain when Castiel squeezed his hand too tight, and Claire did her best not to sob too noticeably, though every once in a while her chest heaved and she did her best to control her breathing again.

It was about half an hour later when the doctor came in. Dean knew the answer before she started speaking, and couldn’t stand the naked hope on Cas and Claire’s faces before she crushed it.

“I am very sorry,” she said. “But Amelia and James Novak have passed away. The blood loss was severe, and despite our attempts at resuscitation we’ve had to call it. If you want to speak with someone, we have a counselor and a chaplain on hand.”

Dean thought for a moment Castiel wasn’t going to answer, but he did.

“Yes, they would… they would want a prayer,” he said quietly. “Baptist, I think.”

Claire nodded silently. The doctor nodded and alerted one of the nurses before sitting beside them.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” she continued. “There will be some legal work that we need the next of kin to take care of though. Are your brother’s parents still alive?”

“He would have left that to me,” Castiel said, knowing that Jimmy had a very particular order of people he’d put down in his will for how things should be dealt with. “He wants to be buried. He and Amelia both. I don’t…”

The doctor was very professional and led Cas gently through a series of questions while Dean let Claire cry herself out before falling asleep against his side. He kissed her forehead when she was out. He knew what it was like to lose a parent. But both at the same time? God he couldn’t imagine.

At long last Castiel was done with the doctor’s questions and Dean gently woke Claire. She silently followed them into the car and didn’t say a word the entire ride back to their apartment. The guest room was set up, so she went there immediately and likely didn’t sleep for a second. Dean stayed up and made tea and tried to gauge if Castiel was alright.

He wasn’t. But he seemed to have decided now was the perfect time to go statue still, a skill that had gotten in the way of their relationship before. It was the one time Cas actually managed to be unreadable. Otherwise his emotions were so clear to Dean, but now he only saw that something was incredibly wrong.

“Cas?” he tried, setting the tea down in front of him. Something started to crack and Dean was at his side in a second.

“I can’t feel it,” Castiel said, head falling into his hands. “Shouldn’t I have been able to feel it?”

Dean kissed him a moment and tried to get him to go to their room to sleep. Castiel complied at last and when he finally went under, Dean called into both of their work places and Claire’s school and said that there was a family emergency and they wouldn’t be in the next day.

********Two Weeks Later*************

“What?” Dean said flatly to the lawyer in front of him. Naomi didn’t fidget, but she should have because Dean was about two seconds away from decking her. “What do you mean we don’t get to take care of Claire? Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak, we’re listed in her parents’ wills. Both of them. I’ve seen them.”

“There must be some mistake,” Castiel agreed, placing a hand lightly in front of his husband’s chest to discourage him from doing anything rash.

“No,” Naomi said. “It’s simply that your paperwork has been looked over and you’ve both been deemed unfit to take care of a child.”

Realization flitted across Dean’s face, and he gritted his teeth.

“A two income house with steady and legal jobs with no criminal history is unfit for a child?” he said. He knew Castiel had realized too, and was now staring at Naomi in a kind of horror. “Why exactly?”

They both knew. They didn’t think she would say it out loud, but apparently she had no such reservations.

“Frankly, it’s because you are not a soul mate pair. I’m sure you knew when you married each other you wouldn’t be allowed to adopt children,” she said smoothly. “We don’t have confidence in your commitment to your relationship or your ability to raise a child. This being the case, we won’t grant you custody.”

“That is such bullshit,” Dean shouted, standing up. “You are not fucking taking my niece and putting her in foster care when she has two people willing to-“

“Mr. Winchester, please control yourself,” Naomi said, keeping her voice restrained. “I don’t make these decisions, and yelling at me isn’t going to change them. I have nothing further to say. Someone will be along to collect Claire. Depending on the family she’s placed with you may or not be allowed visits.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dean said. Naomi’s expression made it quite clear that she was not kidding. Dean was about to start laying into her again before Cas dragged him off. He tried to shrug out of his husband’s grasp, but Cas kept pulling.

“You didn’t say anything,” Dean hissed at him when they had gotten out of the room. “What was that, Cas?”

Castiel held up one finger to indicate he needed a moment before breathing out slowly. It was then that Dean could see just how angry his husband was.

“Call your brother. We need a lawyer,” Castiel said, taking out his own phone as he began rapidly messaging. Likely he was leaving the news with Amelia and Jo and Benny and asking them to put feelers out to see if they could build any kind of case against this. Dean doubted he was texting Claire. He would likely want to tell her about this in person.

Dean complied. He understood now that Castiel had seen they would get nowhere with the woman they had spoken to and was now attempting to see if they could find some kind of legal loophole or law that meant they could keep Claire. Dean typed in his brother’s work phone, and then waited for him to answer.

“Hey, Dean,” said Sam amicably, if slightly reserved. “How are Cas and Claire holding up?”

Dean hadn’t been calling as much as usual on account of recent tragic circumstances. He felt a little bad about that, but he knew Sam understood. He kind of had his hands full at the moment. He could only hope that Sam would be willing to help them.

“Listen, Sam, we just talked with some lady from child services,” Dean said. “She says they denied us guardianship of Claire. We need a lawyer to figure out if we can rig this against them.”

For a little while there was only silence and Dean began to get really nervous about it.

“Dean, you know I can’t do that. Ethically, there’s a conflict of interest here, and there are so many laws against-“

“I know,” Dean cut in. A lot of laws he’d spent his adulthood trying to ignore and never quite managing. “I know what the laws are. But Jimmy and Amelia, they chose us. And Claire needs a stable place right now, and she wants to stay with us. All of that, that’s got to count for something, right?”

Dean could hear Sam sigh over the phone.

“I still can’t do it, but I think I know someone who can. I have to warn you, she’s young and she likes to show off that she’s smart. I kinda doubt you’ll like her.”

“At this point, I’d take representation from a lizard in a tie,” Dean said. “Cas and I, we’ll pay whatever she charges. Tell her that okay?”

“Okay. I’ll let you know,” said Sam. “And I’m so sorry about all of this.”

Then he hung up.

Dean stared at his phone for a moment thinking. It was just so unfair. It didn’t make any sense to him how they could deny their niece two people that loved and would take care of her for such a small thing as a stupid tattoo. Dean had never understood it.

It had started with his mom and dad, and figuring out pretty quickly how ill suited they were for each other, despite fate having deemed them the perfect fit. The constant fighting had worn on him, and taken a toll on his grades in school to the point he’d pretty much given up on them and decided to do his own thing. He’d read a lot, during that time and seen a lot of movies and started to put together a couple of interesting theories that he still had rattling around the back of his head, the majority of which he’d left back in his rebellious high school days.

Because it was when he got to high school that he met some of his life long friends. At first it had been him and Benny and Jo and Meg, but they’d gradually collected more malcontents as time went on. There was Ash, and then there was Robin, and around their junior year to everyone’s surprise Castiel had joined up with their little group of freaks.

Not that Castiel had such high social standing that he was missing anything by hanging out with them, he just had thoroughly not been their kind of person. The only thing they all had in common was that they disliked the way the world worked and they wanted to change it. It was the summer before their senior year that they decided to put their money where their mouths were and do something about it.

Everyone knew that it was a technically possible to prevent your soulmate’s name from showing up over your heart. There were certain chemicals that prevented the melanin from depositing. Dean had always found it funny, how elegantly science could undo what magic had forced on everyone for so long. They had all done it, and when everyone else was turning eighteen and learning their soulmate’s names, neither Dean nor any of his friends ever did.

His dad had been pissed about it, and Dean didn’t like to remember that part so much. He had started dating Castiel by that point, and his dad had started talking about how dating was okay as practice but he was going to have to start preparing himself for when he found out who his soul mate was. He’d never really taken to Cas, though that might be because he’d never really taken to any of Dean’s friends.

It wasn’t as though being together had been all rainbows after that either. Dean had had to figure out where to squat for a while, because his dad hadn’t wanted him giving Sam dangerous ideas about how society worked and Cas didn’t want his parents knowing he wouldn’t be getting the mark over his chest when he turned eighteen and said that Dean couldn’t stay with him. He’d ended up staying at Jo and Ellen’s for a while, and he and Cas had taken a break to figure out their respective shit. After that Cas had gone off to college and veterinary school and Dean had thought that was that.

It was difficult dating when everyone had a name on their chest and was waiting for a real relationship. Dean liked sex, sure, and he had nothing against casual sex, but there was something so demeaning in the way people’s eyes would just glaze over him, as though he were some kind of glorified sex toy instead of a human being. He only had one genuine relationship at college with a girl named Abby, who’d also gotten the shot that prevented her soulmate from showing up on her chest. Then again, that had ended pretty badly for everyone involved too. She very much liked to be in control, and while that was appealing sometimes it got to the point where Dean felt as though she had her fingers in every part of his life and he couldn’t breathe anymore. So he’d dumped her and changed his number and his locks. Not his most mature moment, but he was still glad he’d done it.

After that he’d given up on love for a while and focused on his job. Jo had also joined the force and they had ended up working together both to their happiness and dismay. They had the sexual tension thing down pat, but even that had fizzled out after getting to know each other a little too well. It was strange how much she’d changed from high school and she no longer resembled the leather clad, “too cool for you” knock out she’d been then, replaced now with someone that was both confident, lethal, and a lot more willing to be a complete dork. Of course, eventually she and Benny ended up reconnecting at a five year reunion and that effectively put an end to any chance of that happening either.

Funnily enough, Dean did not drown his small and unrequited crush on Jo by hooking up with Castiel at this same reunion, since Cas had no desire to revisit his past and hadn’t attended. No, Dean met his childhood sweetheart again at his brother’s wedding funnily enough.

Amelia, Sam’s now ex-wife, was Sam’s soul mate. He had never gotten the shot that Dean had, though he’d threatened to quite a few times when he’d been angry at their father. Dean supposed that Sam wasn’t the type who could not know something like that. He was always very curious about everything and even if he didn’t want to be with his soul mate, he still wanted to know who they were. It had been Amelia, who was Castiel’s partner at their veterinary office. She’d invited Cas to do a reading at the small ceremony she and Sam had had, and Dean had thought it would be rude to ignore an old boyfriend, even if they hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

And then they had both gotten quite drunk and ended up making out in a corner.

It took three years for them to decide to get married. They started talking about it six months in to dating, which had a lot of people in their lives warning them against moving too fast. It wasn’t that it was unusual to marry quickly, it was that Dean and Cas didn’t know if they were each other’s soul mates or not, and statistically people who got together that weren’t soul mates were less likely to stay together.

Dean was still pretty sure the reason for that was that everyone shit on you all the time if you didn’t fit into their prejudices and expectations.

But it was enough of an issue that they waited and they talked to people about it. One of the problems that had been relevant—and dear God was it relevant now—was that neither of them would be able to have kids.

Jo and Benny hadn’t had to worry about that of course, since they could have kids on their own, but the chances of letting a non-soulmate couple adopt were so close to zero as to be negligible. There were some high profile celebrity cases of allowing this in the name of diversity, but in real life it was an impossibility. And Dean had always wanted a kid. So it had taken a few years to finally resign himself to the fact that he would never have one.

Sam and Amelia had split up by the time Dean and Cas had married. It had been kind of nasty and that hadn’t helped his and Cas’ own relationship at the time, but eventually the two ex-spouses had managed their problems to the point where they were now good friends again. So they had never had kids, and Dean was pretty sure that that was a part of his life he’d never get to experience.

And then, a year into his marriage to Cas, Claire had been born. Jimmy and Castiel were very close, and Jimmy had invited his twin brother to meet his little girl before he had invited his own parents. Cas had been delighted, and Dean had fallen hard for his adorable little niece. She had him wrapped around her finger enough that everyone knew not to leave Dean and her alone for a day because he would somehow end up buying her half a candy store.

It wasn’t his own kid, but it had been something and Dean had been glad for it. It helped how understanding Jimmy and Amelia had been too. They were some of the only people who had actually talked to Dean about the concept of marriage with Cas positively, and without veiled assumptions that they weren’t really happy together.

It took Cas gently taking his wrist to pull Dean back to reality. He realized he’d been crying slightly, partly from thinking of Jimmy and Amelia dead and partly out of frustration at their current predicament.

“We’ll figure it out,” Cas said, sounding like a soldier about to go into battle. It was enough to draw a quick grin from Dean.

“Yeah we will.”

*********Several Days Later*********

Dean was surprised by the lawyer Sam had sent them to. He was right to warn him about just how young she was, because she didn’t seem old enough to even be a lawyer, let alone one that could help them much. She had the pale look of someone that spent all their time indoors, and the posters to prove she likely spent a good deal of time on her computer or watching movies. She was also a fast talker, and she backtracked and edited her sentences as quickly as she formed them, all of which made it hard to keep up with her.

Despite his, the woman who had introduced herself as Charlie was rather charming.

After she’d gotten through introductions and learning the details of their case she’d sat and stared at it for a long time, pulling out some of her books and flipping to pages seemingly from memory. At long last she addressed them.

“Legally, they have the right to deny you custody,” Charlie said gravely. Dean felt like someone had dropped a stone on his chest. “But there is something we can do.”

“Anything,” Castiel said, leaning forward. Charlie made an expression that said very clearly that Cas should hear her out before deciding. Then she went ahead and told them her plan.

“You two would need to get divorced,” she said, pausing at the stunned looks on their faces. “Get the operation you had reversed, and convince whoever your soul mate is to marry you. That’s the only way they’ll approve this.”

“What?” said Dean, already in a state of complete disbelief. “Cas and I are not getting divorced.”

“I’m telling you, it’s your only option if you want to keep this kid. And it would only be for a couple of years. After she turns eighteen, she can decide for herself and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop her, but for right now if you want guardianship, that’s what has to happen.”

Castiel stood up quickly and glared at her. She didn’t shrink from the gaze.

“There has to be some other way. Some way we can prove that we can take care of Claire. Some way to change their minds.”

“Please sit down, Mr. Novak,” Charlie said not unkindly. Castiel did so with a huff and they both waited.

“I know how hard this is,” Charlie said, moving the neckline of her shirt to show the name Gilda. “I got married to a woman named Dorothy. And I know it bothers her to see this name on my chest. She got the shots like you did. But we make it work. The arrangement I’m suggesting, it’s not forever. It’s until Claire is eighteen. That’s only a couple of years. Don’t think I don’t want to tell you to fight this, and if I thought it would do anything I would, but setting any kind of legal precedent for a case like this? It’s going to take time you don’t have.”

Dean and Cas exchanged glances and then looked back at Charlie who seemed to be gauging their reactions. At long last they both nodded, looking resigned.

“If you want to fight, we’ll fight,” Charlie finished. “But if one of you wants guardianship over Claire, then this is what you have to do.”

“Can we speak privately for a moment?” Castiel asked at last. Charlie indicated with her hand that they could and the two men left her office to speak with each other.

“It would only be four years,” Dean said, trying to force a smile. “We’ve taken longer breaks before.”

“You’re willing to do this for Claire?” Castiel asked urgently. “It won’t be easy… and it’s going to involve someone else.”

Dean can’t say he’d never wondered before who his soul mate might be. When he’d bothered to give it much thought, he’d sometimes daydreamed that it was Cas. That they could finally be seen as legitimate in the eyes of the people around them. The fear that it was someone else had always kept him from suggesting they go through with the procedure to undo the tattoo prevention shot. Still, he clung to that hope now.

“Who knows babe, maybe it’s us,” he said. Castiel sighed and nodded and the two men hugged briefly before going back into Charlie’s office.

“Do you need more time to decide?” she asked. “I understand if you don’t want to rush into this.”

Castiel shook his head.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to get Claire,” he said, glancing at Dean for silent confirmation. Dean nodded. Castiel continued speaking. “How would you suggest we proceed?”


	2. Chapter 2

It was a nightmare dealing with trying to get Claire’s new information, and attempting to hold off child services from removing her right away. They had, actually agreed to consider returning her if they complied with Charlie’s recommendations, which was good, if frustrating news, but that hadn’t stopped them from taking Claire to a foster home.

Jody wasn’t a bad person at least. She already had another foster kid, and she took the names Claire called her in stride and made contact with Dean and Cas when child services refused to pass along Claire’s address or new phone number. After that they’d been allowed to visit her regularly, and had explained to her they were going to take care of it.

The first time Cas had shown up Claire had practically begged him to take her home. He’d told Dean about it that same night.

“She’s says Jody is nice, but apparently Alex and her don’t get along,” Castiel had started with. “And she doesn’t understand why she can’t live with us.”

“Yeah well neither do I.”

“Unfortunately because legally she can’t,” Castiel reminded him. Dean had just buried his face into his husband’s neck.

“Well, the law is stupid,” he muttered. As an officer, he probably shouldn’t be saying that. He didn’t care. The next day they would be going to have Castiel receive a shot that would allow the melanin to deposit over his heart. So if Dean’s name wasn’t the one that showed up, Cas would see if his soulmate was a viable option for a false marriage. They’d decided to only have Castiel go forward at first, since he had a stronger legal claim to Claire than Dean did as a blood relation.

Dean suspected that Castiel also really didn’t want to see someone else’s name on Dean’s chest.

****The Next Morning****

Dean could tell it wasn’t usual for this kind of thing to happen with someone there to hold your hand. It was oddly painful apparently, something that the nurse warned Castiel about. Dean spied her name tag and read Martha. He tried talking to her but was met with more confused looks as she tried to figure out why he was there. He’d introduced himself as Cas’ husband and Dean got the feeling that she was under the impression they were separating and that’s why Cas wanted to know who his soul mate was. Which they were, but they sure weren’t going to act like it right now.

Martha had eventually brought in the series of shots. Cas had never really liked needles, though he gritted his teeth through the entire process. At first nothing happened until the nurse used a UV light in order to stimulate melanin production, and then slowly a name began to appear across Castiel’s chest and Dean’s heart sank looking at it. Castiel frowned in gentle surprise.

“Meg?” he said, a little softly. She had died from an overdose before any of them had graduated high school and Dean remembered now a little too clearly just how torn up Cas had been about it at the time. The spike of jealousy that caused was in no way fair, and Dean knew it. Knowing it didn’t help.

Dean decided to stick to the practical side of the situation. And the practical side was that Meg was dead and she wasn’t going to be helping them. It made him feel guilty, thinking so coldly of an old friend, but it was all he could manage at the moment. Because Cas was his, not hers.

“I guess it’s my turn,” Dean said. “Martha, think you could schedule another appointment?”

She frowned. It was pretty clear she could make neither heads nor tails of their reactions.

“I could do you right now,” she said. “Just make sure you pay for both.”

Dean readily agreed to that and then stripped out of his shirt so he could go through the same thing Cas had. The shots were as painful as they had looked and left Dean with the feeling that something was bubbling up under his skin. After a few minutes, the nurse put the UV light over his heart and his soul mate’s name appeared. Dean already knew it wouldn’t be Cas, but somehow that didn’t stop him from hoping. He looked down when he finished and frowned.

Fergus.

“Who the fuck is that?” he wondered out loud.

****Later That Week*****

“The divorce papers are here,” Castiel said flatly.

Dean had put in ad out on several soul mate search sites in order to figure out who his mystery guy was, but he wasn’t hopeful. At this point, they were hoping that the divorce and proof that Castiel couldn’t be with his soul mate would be enough, but Charlie had said likely it wouldn’t work.

They were still going to try of course.

Charlie was there with them within an hour and reading through each part with them and changing it as they asked. It was almost too easy to detangle each of the ways their lives had intertwined. Separate their finances, divide their possessions, break their vows. It was emotionally draining in a way that Dean hadn’t expected, and he found himself picking fights over stupid things that he didn’t care of he or Cas owned anyways. Cas noticed after a while and asked Charlie if they could take a break.

He’d taken Dean into the kitchen and kissed under his chin and whispered reassurances.

“It’s only for a few years. I still love you. So much. This doesn’t mean anything.”

“We aren’t going to be married anymore. Of course it means something,” Dean grated out, turning away from Cas. “I know it’s for Claire. I know. It’s just I keep hearing Charlie saying things about us starting separate lives and that is the last thing I want.”

“We’ll still be married,” Castiel said behind him. “Not legally, but where it counts, we will be.”

“It just doesn’t really feel like it,” said Dean refusing to turn around. “Cas, we’ll have to sneak around. We’ll have to lie to people. I won’t be able to touch you in front of anyone, you understand that right?”

“Dean-“

“And what if one of us gets sick? You think I want my dad or your parents making decisions for us?”

“List Sam as your next of kin.”

“And what are you going to do then?” Dean pressed. He faced Cas then, anger giving him the power to look at last. “I know we have to do this, I’m not backing out but don’t treat it like it’s nothing. This is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It is not nothing.”

That quieted Castiel for a moment. He seemed to almost speak several times and then reconsider before at last he found the words he wanted to say.

“You’re right. It’s not nothing. But it’s also not forever. And it’s not giving up, either.”

Dean sighed and let Cas try to calm him down, but he still had the feeling that Cas didn’t quite understand how unsettled he was by the whole thing. They went back into their dining room and sat next to Charlie and finished going over the papers. At last they both signed the last page. Dean was surprised that there was almost nothing to signify the moment. Just the scratch of a pen and he and Cas were divorced.

“Alright, I’ll file your papers and see what I can do. Dean, let me know if you find this Fergus guy, okay?” said Charlie. “Until then, one of you needs to live in a new place. Since we agreed Dean keeps this apartment, Cas that means you have to move out. We can not have anyone spotting you two having frequent visits No phone records either. Business calls only.”

“So how are we going to talk to each other?” Dean asked. Charlie passed them each a burner.

“Use these. We can loosen up how often you guys can see each other after we’ve got Claire back, but until then it needs to look like the two of you are genuinely broken up, got it?”

Dean swallowed hard and nodded.

“Got it,” he repeated. He looked toward Cas and tried to think of something to say. “So I guess this is goodbye for a while then.”

“It’s not forever,” Cas reminded him. Charlie had at this point decided that she was going to leave, and had discreetly made her way out to give them privacy. Castiel looked around their home and then toward the boxes they had packed in advance and would be picked up and moved to Cas’ new place within the next few hours. Dean tried not to think about it. “Do you want me to leave now.”

So Cas had picked up on the fact Dean was still uneasy.

“No,” said Dean. He kissed Cas then and Castiel broke easily from the considerate person he was trying to be by attempting to leave and let Dean collect his thoughts. Both of them were well aware this was the last time they were going to be alone with each other for a while, and they decided to make it count.

After all, Dean thought later, when Cas had gone to take a shower before the moving people showed up, Cas was his.

****A Week Later****

Dean stared at his computer in surprise. On the screen was a picture of his name across someone’s chest and a response to the ad he had put out. They asked if he wanted to meet for lunch.

Dean called Charlie and replied yes to whoever this Fergus guy was as the phone rang.

Charlie confirmed this was good news and said that she’d been having issues convincing child services that Castiel had truly renounced his so called “subversive ways” and that if Dean could manage to strike a deal with whoever his soul mate turned out to be, he had a much higher chance of gaining custody over Claire. She promised to share this news with Castiel.

Dean in the meantime needed to mentally prepare himself for meeting his soul mate.

He wondered what the man would be like. Whether he would be like Cas. Whether he would be understanding when Dean explained the situation to him. Whether he would be someone Dean would have fallen in love with if he hadn’t stopped himself from knowing who the mystery man was all those years ago.

It didn’t feel good to think about. Dean knew it was a result of feeling lost since Cas wasn’t home anymore, but he still shouldn’t wonder about who he was going to meet like this. For all he should care he could be meeting a human sized rat with wings, and that would be good enough for their ruse to work.

Lunch time came around quickly and Dean went to the restaurant the two had agreed on and grabbed a table near the exit in case things went south. Then he waited. And waited.

It was another half an hour before he showed up. And when he did, Dean recognized his face.

“No,” he said immediately. Crowley rolled his eyes and sat down across from him, picking up the menu and staring at it. Dean just kept looking forward in wide eyed horror.

Crowley was a mobster. Dean ran into his people all the time, and had caught Crowley doing a million just this side of legal side projects. He’d never linked enough proof to the guy to arrest him, but he’d run into him more than a few times, and thoroughly disliked him.

“I’ve heard the salmon’s good here,” the mobster said mildly, his accent at last breaking Dean from whatever short trance he’d fallen into.

“Like I’m actually supposed to believe this,” Dean snorted. It was obviously some kind of trick. It had to be. “What the hell is it that you want, Crowley?”

Crowley held up a finger, and then produced a birth certificate that read Fergus McCleod. Then he moved the neckline of his shirt and the irrevocable proof was written there right over his heart: Dean.

“How long have you known?” Dean asked next, understanding now that there was no trick. At least not about the soul mates issue. He was aware that Crowley was slippery enough to try to use this to his advantage, but there was no doubting the evidence he had provided. He suddenly spun through a series of showdowns between the two of them and saw each exchanged word in a new light. It was not a pleasant shift in perspective.

“Always,” Crowley said, as though it didn’t matter. “But that’s not really what I revealed myself for to discuss. Now, I have my fingers within certain local government agencies and I just so happen to know exactly why you’ve decided to search out a soul mate you’ve never been interested in finding before.”

He knew about Claire. Dean didn’t like the direction this was going.

“If you lay a finger on her-“ he started threatening. Crowley cut him off with an exasperated sigh.

“What I mean to say is that I know what you’re planning to do,” he clarified. “You need to marry your soul mate so that you can have custody. And I responded to your ad because I’m willing to comply.”

Dean narrowed his eyes.

“Not out of the goodness of your heart I’m sure.”

Crowley smiled.

“I happen to have certain business ventures planned for the next several years,” Crowley confirmed. “And I think it would be a great help if one of our lovely town’s best officers was kept off investigations into these cases. In order to prevent conflict of interest, since his soul mate would be the central target of these campaigns you see.”

“So you help me get Claire, and I make sure your scumbag ass doesn’t go to jail, am I getting this right?” Dean asked. Crowley nodded.

“Do we have ourselves a deal?”

“Eat shit, Crowley,” Dean said, getting up to leave. He caught the flash of anger across Crowley’s face, and something that looked a little like genuine hurt. He ignored the last part. There was no way he was going to compromise his own morals like that. Not even for…

Claire.

Dean couldn’t help himself. He walked right back in that damn restaurant and sat back down.

“Let’s get this straight. I don’t like you. I don’t want to do this, and if this wasn’t about Claire I would find a way to send you to jail so fast you wouldn’t know what had hit you.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Crowley said smugly. He reached into his pocket and tossed Dean a ring box. “I’d get down on one knee, but my joints have been acting up recently.”

Dean let his head hit the back of his chair. This was going to be a nightmare.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean had Charlie check three times that Crowley was telling the truth. Maybe four. She showed him records of a legal name change and confirmed his birth certificate was accurate. There was no getting around it. He was actually going to have to marry Crowley.

Dean had called Castiel on his burner phone to share the news, and hadn’t missed the way he had gone very quiet about it all. There was less sympathy than Dean had expected and something almost resigned about the call. He didn’t like it.

“Cas, talk to me okay,” Dean said, finally not being able to take the silence on the other end of the phone.

“I’m sorry,” Cas said immediately, guiltily. “It’s just difficult to have to remember that you weren’t supposed to end up with me.”

“Cas, please don’t spout bullshit. If you don’t want me to marry him, I won’t. This is for Claire, you do know that right?”

“I do, of course I do,” Cas said quietly. Dean could imagine the way he would fold in on himself as he answered, his eyes narrowing defensively and his shoulders bending forward minutely, just enough to make his frustration evident. “But you use the word soul mate and that wretched man’s name in the same sentence and suddenly a lifetime of hearing that soul mates belong together comes back to me. Before, it was just a name but now that I know he exists…”

“You don’t think I felt the same way when I heard about Meg? You don’t think that fucked with my head?” Dean asked.

“That’s different. Meg is dead.”

“So what? It still hurt to see. But none of that matters, because we never cared about that before. Nothing has changed between you and me and nothing is ever going to change,” Dean said.

Dean didn’t expect what happened next, though he should have. If there was one thing he knew about Castiel, it was that when he was stressed he did research. Dean’s husband- ex-husband- was a firm believer that once he knew the territory surrounding whatever concerned him he would be better able to face it. Unfortunately, sometimes it only served to make him more anxious.

“Harriet Rogers. Married sixteen years to Jacob Wright. She found her soul mate and remarried within sixteen months. They’re still together. Jeff Hart. He had three children with Tessa Feord before he found his soul mate and left her and the them both. Mason Burns. He got the same shots as we did and spent forty years with the same man. He recently had the process reversed and left him for his soul mate. Rebecca Turner-“

“Okay Cas, I get it,” Dean cut in, knowing Cas would just get more and more upset as he went on. “Where did you read all of this?”

“They’re the success stories,” Cas said back hollowly. “The ones on the search sites. It’s never too late to find your soul mate.”

The words hung hollow and it occurred to Dean that Castiel was recognizing a difference in power in this situation. Dean could conceivably—well not conceivably because this was Crowley they were talking about, but still—prove the assholes right and end up with Crowley when all was said and done, and Castiel wouldn’t have anyone. His chance for “true love”, no matter how empty those words really seemed to be had passed him by before he ever even would have learned that Meg was his soul mate. There was no recourse for him if Dean decided to end things. No second chance, not at their age. It was a cold and logical way to look at the situation, but Dean knew it to be a coping mechanism. Behind it all was fear, but it wasn’t necessary.

“Dean Winchester. Crazy about his obnoxious, animal saving, weird ass ex husband and always will be. Soul mate or no soul mate. That’s the only success story I want to hear, capisce?”

The slight huff in Castiel’s breathing was enough for Dean to picture the slight smile on his face. His lips would curl up at the edges just so, a flutter of movement that could be missed if one blinked.

“I capisce,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “And Charlie really thinks this will work?”

“We’re going to have to sell it,” Dean admitted. “You and I have to appear broken up. Amicably, but definitively. They know this is a scam to some degree, but like all of your dumb success stories, I think they figure I’ll end up with my soul mate eventually anyway. They want it to look like we’re falling in line, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“And Crowley?”

“I don’t know yet. You, me, and him are talking with Charlie in a week to nail out an agreement and then we’ll get married and ask child services to reconsider my application. Charlie said it should be okay for you to live near me as long as the neighbors don’t suspect we might be continuing our relationship, because they’ll definitely be interviewed. But I know you’ll want to be close to Claire, and that’s a valid reason for you to be near me.”

“That’s good planning,” said Castiel. “I’ll actually get to see you.”

“Aw, Cas. It’s almost like you miss me.”

“Very much,” Castiel confirmed. It was a little too weighty of a response for Dean’s teasing comment and when he hung up and went to bed, Dean noticed the fact that the other side of it was empty. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that he was still sleeping on his side, even though he didn’t have to anymore. He thought about sprawling across the middle but something about doing so seemed so wrong that he immediately rejected it. Instead he curled up and spent a good hour in which he should be sleeping wondering whether Castiel was sleeping on his side of the bed too.

****One Week Later****

Charlie organized her papers and greeted Crowley suspiciously. Dean suspected it was because she had done a little bit too much reading on him and the possible crimes he was connected to. He wondered if he saw any judgment in her eyes. He had thought it himself many times. Crowley was his soul mate? Just how fucked up was he that this was supposed to be his ideal match?

If she was concerned about Dean’s credibility, she didn’t mention instead getting down to business and going over a contract she had drawn up, which Crowley immediately got into and began picking out small details and other nit-picky subjects. Charlie visibly grew more frustrated by the minute, especially since Dean was depending on Cas to pay attention at this point. He would have brought Sam, but his brother was in the middle of a criminal case and had zero time for the next few days, and Dean wanted to get all of this out of the way so they could start trying to get Claire back as soon as possible.

At long last Crowley was satisfied with the contract. He’d stipulated that Dean wasn’t allowed to touch his finances, which Dean was actually grateful for. The more separate he was from Crowley’s life the less chance he had of being arrested if the guys down at the station ever got their shit together and found enough evidence against him. Charlie had put down that neither of them would share their money, neither of them would gain anything from the other in the event of death, and after an intense amount of argument that Crowley and Dean would not register to marry as soul mates, and instead disclose the information privately to child services. Charlie was worried that this would weaken their case for getting Claire back, but Crowley said he would only sign if it was included.

Although Dean was partially annoyed Crowley had insisted this point, he was relieved too. He wasn’t sure if Crowley was religious or not, but most soul mates liked to marry within their churches, which was the last thing Dean wanted. Very few religious sects allowed non soul mates to marry, and most of those that did only allowed this if the two marrying had dead soul mates. Divorce was not seen as a valid excuse to remarry if the person you were marrying wasn't your soul mate, which was one reason Dean suspected Sam had never tried to start another relationship after Amelia. He was more spiritual than religious, but Sam still attached an importance to love being confirmed before the eyes of God. For Dean’s brother, signing a document at city hall wasn’t a wedding.

Dean remembered how Cas had signed their marriage certificate slowly, hesitating over every letter. Trying to get each one just right. There had been something magical in that, how seriously he had taken signing a piece of paper. The way he’d smiled after he’d finished, admiring the way his name looked below Dean’s.

Dean remembered that before Cas had done this he’d signed the paper as fast as he could, thinking somehow that maybe Cas would run out on him if he didn’t get pen to paper as soon as possible.

“What are you grinning about?” Crowley asked, irritated. Dean dropped his smile and realized everyone was staring at him. He gathered fairly quickly Charlie had been speaking to him and he had ignored her.

“Sorry,” he said clearing his throat. “What did you say?”

“I said that you and Crowley need to get to know each other. I’ve arranged a date for you two to sign a marriage certificate but child services is going to send someone in to interview and if they don’t think the two of you are falling happily in love they won’t send you Claire. This strategy has been tried before, and-“

“You mean there are many other cases like this?” Castiel interrupted, sounding curious. Charlie nodded seriously.

“Yeah, actually. That’s why Sam recommended you guys to me. I’m currently putting together a case against discrimination for non-soul mate couples. Unfortunately you guys aren’t a good fit, since getting those shots is actually still illegal. They don’t enforce arrests since its widespread enough that it would triple prison populations, but there are significant consequences for anyone trying to work in the public sector if they got the shot as a kid. It’s almost impossible to get hired for local government positions, get elected, and a lot of times necessary services can be denied on the basis of having broken this one law. It’s ridiculous, but it’s a bad test case. I’m going to start with non soul mate couples whose soul mates are abusive or dead, and argue that they are being discriminated against through no fault of their own and hope I can set a precedent to win more rights as I go.”

Dean hadn’t realized that there were other people going through the same thing he and Cas were now. Who had lived their lives thinking that they could break with the status quo and then find out so suddenly that the restrictions they thought they had avoided were still very much there.

“Can you send me some of that info?” Dean asked. Castiel held up two fingers to indicate he would also like to look at the case work Charlie had. Charlie nodded and then went back to her instructions to Dean and Crowley. Crowley had by this point decided that the meeting was no longer of interest to him and had taken out his phone.

“Quiz each other on facts, make up pet peeves, think up qualities you admire in each other. All the couple stuff you can think of, do it. But don’t be obnoxious about it. Do you guys think you can pull that off?”

She sounded skeptical, and glanced at Crowley who was furiously typing on his phone and ignoring her. She sighed and gave Dean a look that said “good luck”. Dean had a feeling he would need it.

***Two Days Later***

Dean wished that Cas was there.

Crowley had shown up with a packet full of information for Dean to memorize and then started examining Dean’s apartment for “livability”. When Dean had complained he’d only said that he was doing Dean a favor and could stop any time he damn pleased. Dean had responded to that by saying if Crowley didn’t go through with their deal he would make sure the bastard went to jail for the rest of his miserable life.

So clearly they were ready for child services to interview them.

Dean flipped through the pages and yawned. They included the names of Crowley’s family and friends and where he went to school and a million other details that Dean mostly already knew from trying to gather enough information to put the guy in jail. It was flat and uninteresting, and told him exactly zero things to even try to pretend to like about Crowley.

“This isn’t the worst place in the world to live, I suppose,” Crowley allowed when he stopped nosing around Dean’s apartment. He’d been poking through his stuff too, probably. Oh well, anything he found was his own fault for not minding his business.

“I already know all this shit,” Dean said, shoving the packet back at Crowley.

“Oh, good. You do care,” Crowley said sardonically. “We should be fine for the interview then.”

“No, we aren’t. I can’t think of one likable thing about you. Not one. How am I supposed to convince anyone that I honestly wanted to leave Cas just so I could be with you? I have to have neighbors and friends vouch for us being a real couple and not just a scam.”

Crowley rolled his eyes.

“People like you. I’m sure they’d be willing to lie,” he pointed out.

“Listen, I need you to take this seriously. We don’t like each other, and that’s fine, but there has to be some part of you that at least wanted to help Claire when you agreed to do this.”

“No. Unfortunately for you, this is a matter of self interest for me,” said Crowley, now searching through one of Dean’s cabinets. He’d tell Crowley to stop, but what would be the point? He was going to be living here soon enough and then he’d have every right to look through the damn cabinets. At last Crowley found something he seemed to approve of. Whiskey. Figured. “I saw an opportunity and I took it. It happens to be in your interest now that I don’t get arrested, because it might affect your chances of holding onto custody for your niece. I like having safe guards.”

“Well that only works as long as Claire is actually in my custody in the first place, so the two of us are going to figure out how to be a convincing soul mate couple or I am going to shoot you in the foot.”

“Well, in my professional opinion soul mates generally don’t threaten each other physical harm, pet,” Crowley said twisting the last word distastefully. Dean took a deep breath to stop himself from saying something he’d regret. Crowley poured himself a few fingers of whiskey and then took out another glass and poured more before passing it to Dean. Dean stared at it suspiciously for a few seconds, and then decided he didn’t much feel like being sober anyway. He took a long sip, the liquor burning its way down his throat.

“What does Castiel complain about to you?” Crowley asked next, sitting down at the far end of the table and looking at his drink contemplatively. “We can start with the easy part. What bothers us about each other?”

The sudden participation was as welcome as it was surprising, but Dean wasn’t going to ask questions when he was finally getting a little cooperation.

“Uh,” Dean said, thinking for a moment. “Cas is a neat freak. He hates the way I fold my clothes, and he always insisted on filing away every receipt we had just in case we need it and he yelled at me a couple of times for throwing away receipts for random shit I buy. I smoke occasionally, and that pisses him off. Just, y’know when I’m stressed? I started back when we were in high school and he wouldn’t kiss me back then if I smelled like cigarettes. He doesn’t like the long hours that I get either, or when I work on Christmas because that’s when he and Jimmy used to go home and Cas’ parents are not real thrilled about me and him.”

“Fascinating,” Crowley said sarcastically. Dean rolled his eyes and poured himself more whiskey. Lack of sobriety could only help he figured.

“So what am I supposed to be annoyed at you about?” Dean asked.

“I’m sure you can think of reasons. You voice your dislike of me often enough.”

“Fine. I’ll say you snore and don’t help with the housework.”

Dean could feel the alcohol starting to take effect and despite the fact he neither trusted nor liked Crowley, he was beginning to relax under its influence. He sat back in his chair slightly and poured himself another few fingers. Crowley followed suit.

“Who does the shopping?”

“Me. Who the fuck knows what you would buy? I don’t want orphans’ blood in my fridge,” said Dean. Crowley snorted, but covered up with a straight face fairly quickly.

“But I cook.”

“Are you kidding me? Cooking is one of the few things I do that isn’t a chore. No way am I giving that up,” Dean said.

“You can cook?” Crowley asked skeptically.

“Yes. What’s that supposed to mean? I did learn to be an adult at a certain point in my life.”

What had really happened was he’d spent quite a few years not living with anyone else and learning to cook had helped improve how he felt on a day to day basis. Cas on the other hand had spent his time on university grounds and had depended on the meal plans there. After that he’d lived on canned food and take out, except for when Jimmy had invited him over so he could eat real food. It ruined the buzz Dean had been nurturing to think that Cas was probably back to his bad eating habits now that he’d moved out. After all, there was no Jimmy to take care of him anymore and Dean wasn’t allowed to see him.

“Are you paying attention?” Crowley asked. Dean snapped to. “I was asking if you had any allergies.”

“Why?”

“So I can kill you,” Crowley said flatly. “Why do you think? Because I’d prefer not to have my fiance go into anaphylactic shock. The benefits of marrying you only work if you’re still alive.”

That was actually a good point.

“Nothing really. Just cats.”

“But not dogs.”

“No.”

“Great,” said Crowley. “Growley probably won’t appreciate the lack of space in this apartment, but I’m sure he’ll get used to it.”

“Growl- what? You are not bringing a dog here. That was not part of the deal. No animals allowed.”

“My dog lives with me or I back out of the deal,” said Crowley. He said it like he was bored and certain he would get his way. Dean grit his teeth because he was right that Dean would deal with Crowley’s stupid dog if it meant he stuck around. “Besides, who doesn’t like dogs?”

“Animals aren’t my thing.”

“You married a vet.”

“Yeah, and Cas is still mad that he can never have a cat. He tried to convince me we should get a gerbil two years ago. After that he tried to push for a bird and then he finally gave up. I don’t do pets. And I am not going to be taking care of your dog.”

“Alright, darling.”

“Would you chill with the pet names?”

“I’m trying to be convincing, love.”

“Save it for the interview,” said Dean. He still didn’t feel anymore prepared than he had before. he just knew so little about the man across from him, and he had no idea how to pass off their relationship as anything even amounting to real. “So you have a dog and you’re terrible at naming things. What else should I know about you?”

Crowley took a breath as though he were about to start a dissertation.

“I’m motivated, ambitious, and I don’t let anyone in the way of what-”

“This is a fake relationship, not a business deal,” Dean interrupted. “One real thing. Just one. Otherwise I can’t pull this off, and I need to make sure this works. Tell me about… tell me about someone important in your life.”

That was a good start for building some sympathy. People always opened up when talking about their loved ones.

“Well, my tailor is fantastic.”

Or not.

“You know what? Just leave. Get out.”

Crowley picked up his coat and called a cab on his phone. He smirked and waved before he left and Dean set out to drunkenly research how soul mates described their relationships on the internet. His eyes fell on words like “instant connection” and “love and support” and “sexual satisfaction” and he tried not to laugh at the thought of applying any of these to Crowley. After that he ended up drunk dialing Cas, which ended in Cas coaxing him to go to sleep and reminding him he had to be up before the sun the next morning, which Dean did not really appreciate. Cas sounded tired. Dean ended up in bed and murmuring into the phone that he wished Cas was there with him until he finally fell asleep.

The next morning he felt terrible and Jo did her best to punish him for showing up to work with a hang over. She stopped when he told her he’d had to meet up with Crowley the night before. She was the only person besides Sam that Dean had told about what was happening with him and Cas. Everyone else thought that they were legitimately divorced, and Dean had a feeling it was still a topic of gossip. That he and Cas weren’t a soul mate couple hadn’t been something Dean had publicized, though it had gotten around in the years he’d been on the force. Most people didn’t mention it, but others had made offhand comments that let Dean know where they stood.

Jo faced the same comments Dean did, and was the only person who he felt he could complain to about things like this. She listened to his entire conversation with Crowley the night previous and frowned as she tried to find some way to spin it so that Dean could do his interview.

“I still can’t believe you have to marry a crime lord,” she decided on saying instead of anything remotely helpful. He knew how awful this must seem to her. They both knew men and women who had been hurt because of Crowley’s actions. It wasn’t something that had been letting him sleep well at night.

“Yeah, well. I gotta do what I gotta do.”

Jo nodded and thought some more.

“You know what you could do? Act like he’s someone you had a crush on as a teenager. Remember how ridiculous people are when they first figure out what feelings are? Everything about them pleases you. Plus it falls in line with the whole soul mate thing. You don’t have to know shit about him, you just have to act like you’re in love with him.”

“Because that’s so easy.”

“You’re a good liar,” Jo pointed out. “You’ll pull through.”

God he hoped so.

***That Saturday***

It just figured that Naomi would be interviewing them. She looked between Dean and Crowley and then consulted her clipboard.

“I am here to ask several questions in order to determine the validity of this relationship,” she said calmly as though she didn’t recognize Dean. Dean knew she did though from the slightly smug way she’d first glanced at him when he introduced Crowley as his soul mate. He could tell that she was one of the people that believed that the act of simply putting two soul mates together resulted in an instant connection despite the fact that Dean heard almost no one in real life describe meeting their significant other that way. He decided to use it to his advantage.

“Ask anything,” he said with a smile aimed Crowley. He looked almost unsettled by it. Dean hoped that meant his acting was working.

“I see here that you are very recently divorced from one Castiel Novak,” Naomi said.

“Things weren’t working out. We both wanted to have guardianship of Claire and that wasn’t going to happen while we were married and we both knew it. We fought about it and it just ended up being too much. After that, I decided to find out who my soul mate was and I met Crowley through a search site,” Dean paused here and took Crowley’s hand. “Best decision I ever made.”

Naomi’s eyebrows were nearly in her hairline, but she looked impressed. She checked some boxes on her sheet and asked more questions. Crowley did better than Dean thought he would. When asked for how they dealt with conflict he mentioned the argument over his dog and spun it as though he’d somehow rationally convinced Dean it was a good idea instead of blackmailing him. If nothing else, Crowley knew how to sell an idea, and he had Naomi eating out of the palm of his hand by the end of the interview. He’d even gone as far to say that one of the things he “loved most about Dean” was his devotion to his niece and suggested that it would mean a lot to him if the two of them could be involved in Claire’s life.

And then just like that they were approved. Dean almost couldn’t believe his ears when Naomi said it. She signed their papers and said that child services would be in touch and they should be able to pick Claire up within a week. The difference in her treatment of him astounded Dean so much that he almost wanted to ask her about it. Demand how she justified herself for having such an obvious bias. He managed to keep quiet though.

It was worth it when he called Cas and told him that they’d won. The relief in his ex-husband’s short exhale of breath was all the reward Dean needed for putting up with Crowley’s shit.


	4. Chapter 4

Claire had her bags packed when Dean and Cas arrived at her front door. Cas somehow ended up moving most of them, since he refused to let either Dean or Claire help, which left Dean to talking with Jody and Claire. Alex apparently had been sulking in her room, because as Jody had confided to Dean when Claire was busy trying to convince Cas she could help with loading the car, the two girls had actually grown to like each other. Not that they ever acknowledged the fact that they were friends.

“It’s been good for Alex, having another girl her age around,” Jody said. “I’m just sorry this is the way it had to happen. But hey, they made an exception for you and Cas! I never thought I’d see the day that would happen.”

Dean had fidgeted slightly at that.

“Uh, Cas and I aren’t together anymore. They granted me custody along with my new husband.”

He and Crowley had signed a marriage license just the week before. Dean hadn’t exactly been eager to tell people about it. Jody looked confused for a moment before her forehead smoothed and she nodded.

“Right. So much for faith in humanity,” she muttered. “Well, if Claire ever needs anything, or just wants a place to go, let her know my doors are always open. And tell her that Alex misses her even if she doesn’t show it so much.”

“Will do. And thank you, Jody, for looking after her for us. If it had been anyone else, God, I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah, well I think Bobby pulled a few strings for that one,” said Jody.

“You know Bobby?” Dean asked in surprise. He was both one of Dean’s father’s best friends and a defense attorney. Then again Bobby had his fingers in everything, and Dean had gone to him for tips on cases more than a few times. Dean supposed since Jody was a sheriff she might have met him too. Dean always thought that Bobby preferred to work in the city, though.

“Yeah. He got up to no good with his friend Rufus in these parts a while back and I had to arrest them both for being drunk and disorderly,” said Jody. Dean went wide eyed with surprise.

“Drunk and disorderly?”

“Uh huh. I had to listen to him and Rufus trying to argue their way out of jail all night. They cited a lot of precedents. I ended up just letting them out once they’d sobered up because that was actually a pretty entertaining shift. We keep in touch. He knew about Alex and when he heard about Claire he asked for a couple of favors down at child services. I figured you knew.”

It didn’t surprise Dean that Bobby hadn’t mentioned. Dean had only talked to him once or twice since this had started, but only to see if Bobby good help them legally. It hadn’t been his area of expertise unfortunately, and Dean had thought that was that.

“No I didn’t. But thanks for telling me. Bobby’s a good guy.”

“That he is. Well,” Jody said, looking over Dean’s shoulder to likely see that Cas and Claire had finished loading up Claire’s things. “Good luck. With Claire and with everything else.”

“Thanks,” Dean said with a strained smile. It was clear that Jody for one knew exactly what was going on with Dean remarrying so quickly, and just because she was friendly and had shown him nothing but kindness didn’t mean that couldn’t come back to bite him in the ass.

Alex ended up making an appearance to tell Claire goodbye. It was a rather abrupt and rude goodbye, but Dean decided that Claire found it to be enough because she hugged Alex quickly before clearing her throat and saying she might “miss you and stuff” before following Cas out of the door and getting in the back of Dean’s car. Dean waved one last time to Jody and Alex before starting to drive off.

They had been explaining pieces of what was going on to Claire, so she wasn’t entirely in the dark, but they still hadn’t told her exactly what the current situation was. She knew that the two of them had gotten divorced and had an idea the plan they were trying, but Dean hadn’t yet shared with her that he’d married Crowley. He and Cas started to fill her in on all the details she’d missed and made her promise to not speak a word of it to any of her friends and she agreed.

Dean noticed that Claire was thinner than she used to be and decided to keep an eye on that. She was also less talkative, and had only insulted him twice on the drive back to his apartment. Cas had been searching for something in the area, and had found an apartment in a complex about half a block from where Dean was living and started renting it. Dean cleared his throat when he got there and knew that this would be the awkward part of all of this.

“Claire, Cas and I haven’t really worked out a schedule of where you’ll be living,” Dean said, getting it out there as quickly as he could. “You need to spend at least a decent amount of time with me, at least at first, but if you ever want to spend any time at Cas’ there are no hard feelings. Especially since Crowley’s going to be around. And if he does anything to make you the least bit uncomfortable tell me and I will kick his ass.”

“I could spend weekends with Cas,” said Claire with an attempt at a smile. “Then I’ll be just like all the other orphans with divorced uncles.”

That was met with silence. Claire seemed to shrink in on herself and got out of the car and started collecting her stuff so she could move it in to Dean’s place and Dean and Cas followed suit because what were you supposed to say to something like that? While they were unloading, Dean noticed that Cas’ hands were shaking slightly. He didn’t do anything about it though, because the neighbors might see.

Crowley was inside watching Pride and Prejudice because of course he was. Growley was a massive and terrifying dog, and the second Claire walked in he leapt up and ran at her until Crowley whistled. Claire was frozen at the door staring at the dog that had been about two seconds from taking her out.

“Control your stupid dog, Crowley,” Dean said angrily looking to see if Claire was okay. He was surprised to see her scratching the thing behind its ear and smiling when the massive thing rolled over and looked up hopefully for a belly rub. Dean looked back at Cas whose mouth twisted a little smugly at the fact that Claire seemed so happy to be playing with a dog.

“Shut up,” said Dean at the dumb face his ex-husband was making.

“Animals are excellent companions, Dean,” Cas said for what must have been the millionth time since he’d known him. “I don’t understand why you insist on disliking them.”

“I’m sure it’s the result of some childhood trauma or other,” Crowley commented from the sofa. “He seems to be chock full of those.”

“Nobody asked either of you,” said Dean. It was strange to have Cas and Crowley in the same room for some reason. It didn’t feel natural, but this was something they were going to have to deal with until Claire turned eighteen. Dean watched as Cas stiffened slightly at being addressed by Crowley and knew that it was exactly the wrong reaction to have. Crowley liked to poke at people for fun, and there was no way he wasn’t going to take advantage of Cas’ discomfort.

“Funny how you never managed to convince him to get even a gold fish,” said Crowley offhandedly. Dean noticed the way Cas’ fist clenched for just a second, though his face remained impassive.

“Yes, how odd I never resorted to blackmail in order to get something I wanted and instead compromised,” Cas shot back, lacking any sort of subtlety. Crowley just smirked and went back to watching his movie. That just seemed to incense Cas more, though he didn’t say anything about it. Just went back out to the car to get more boxes. Claire was still playing with the dog and had missed any kind of meaning in the exchange as far as Dean could tell, luckily. Dean decided to set the record straight for how this was going to work before Cas got back.

“Do not antagonize, Cas,” he said. “We’re all going to have to deal with each other for the next few years, and I’d really like if that went as smoothly as possible.”

“Tell him to grow a thicker skin,” was all Crowley had to say to that.

“At least try not to be a douchebag.”

“Can we discuss this later, dear? I’m trying to watch a movie.”

Claire and Cas walked in a second later with boxes and started heading to the guest room that Dean had allocated for Claire to stay in. He figured that he would just sleep on the pull out, since there was no way Crowley would agree to sleep there. This essentially meant that Dean was going to have to get used to the lumpy mattress, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t had shitty mattresses before. It wasn’t ideal, but it should work if everyone did their parts.

Dean helped Claire unpack until she kicked both him and Cas out of her room so she could unpack herself and put everything where she wanted it. She shut the door behind her. Cas stuck around until she emerged from her unpacking and had dinner with the both of them and then he went back to his own apartment. Dean knew he had an early morning the next day, and warned him not to stay up too late.

Crowley had disappeared a while back, and Dean didn’t really want to know where to. This meant that he and Claire had the house to themselves, and Dean didn’t need to go into work the next day and Claire didn’t have school.

“You want to go do something fun?” he asked Claire after she’d at last unpacked her last box. “There’s a mini golf place nearby. I still need to pay you back for last time.”

At first he thought Claire was going to say no, but she agreed. They were the only people there, since technically it was closed this late. Garth was a good friend of Dean’s though and had opened it up when he’d called ahead. After carefully choosing their clubs and which color ball they were going to be using, they began their epic quest to both win in score and hit the most needlessly complicated shots. It lightened all of Dean’s concerns considerably to see Claire actually having fun.

He managed to eke out a victory much to Claire’s exaggerated dismay, too, which was always nice.

“You know you’re supposed to let me win, right?” Claire pointed out.

“No, this way you know when you win that you earned it.”

They went out for ice cream after that and Claire got quiet again like she was thinking. It often took her a while to put her thoughts into a coherent question and Dean waited for her to sort through them. He had much the same method of thinking, and he always thought that was one of the reasons he and Claire managed to be so close. That and the sarcasm, which Dean would swear until he was dead that he had taught her.

“Can I ask you something?” she said at last.

“Well, you just did,” Dean answered. Claire rolled her eyes and pressed on.

“You still love Uncle Cas, right?” she got out quickly. “Even though you have a soul mate now, you still love him.”

Dean supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. He tried to ignore it, but a lot of mainstream media was saturated with the idea that soul mates loved each other more than anything else. Television shows, blockbusters, reality shows, fluff pieces in newspapers, you name it and it sold the same story. And Claire, even if she had known since a young age that some people chose not to have tattoos and knew that people who weren’t soul mates got together had to have absorbed the implicit message society was sending too. And that was that you weren’t really happy unless you were with your soul mate.

“Yeah, I still love Cas. More than just about anyone except you and Sam.”

“It’s just we studied some of this in school,” Claire said cautiously. “And they said that you can’t help but love your soul mate. It’s magic. It’s just how it works.”

“Well, I’ve never been the biggest fan of how things work.”

This seemed to relieve Claire. She shrugged and bit into her ice cream. Dean decided to change the subject.

“I still don’t understand how you can actually like that dog. It’s like a beast from hell. It growls whenever anyone walks by the door.”

“You’re just mad because he likes me better,” said Claire, finishing her ice cream and getting up so they could go home. They ended up arguing back and forth until Claire fell asleep against the passenger side window.

***Three Months Later***

Dean was searching through his unorganized papers and really wishing that Cas still lived with him. He never lost anything. Dean took very good care of everything he cared about, but when it came to loose pieces of paper that Claire gave him that may or may not be important in the future he had just taken to shoving the papers in a folder and leaving them at the bottom of his desk drawer. It turned out one of the papers was important, as it had the list of people Claire wanted to spend the night for her birthday and he needed to call all of their parents and okay it with them.

It was while he was doing this that he found the papers that Charlie had sent him a month and a half back about the case she was building. He’d never actually gotten around to reading since work had taken a turn for the hectic with a series of robberies taking over everybody’s focus. If that wasn’t enough, Dean had to be taken off of three different other cases because their were connections to Crowley. Jo was probably starting to hate him, though she never made a big deal of it. Luckily the robbery case was something they could work on, and they’d ended up solving it, but after that Dean had had to deal with Claire punching some punk out at school and trying to make sure it didn’t go on her permanent record, which he had just barely managed.

He abandoned his search for the list of kids Claire had invited and took out the packet of information Charlie had sent him and started to peruse it. He scanned the first few pages and then started reading more deeply. It was shocking, the more he read just how much systematic discrimination was in place against anyone who didn’t conform to the traditional soul mate model. Dean read over cases of couples being denied housing, divorced men and women that were fired from jobs that required them to be “role models” for children, and other general bullshit that he had had no idea was so prevalent. It was his phone ringing that reminded him he’d been on a quest, and he placed the file on top of his desk before checking his phone. It was Crowley.

“What?”

“That’s no way to answer the phone when your loving husband calls you,” Crowley tutted. “I just wanted to know if I should get anything for the child’s birthday.”

“You mean Claire?” Dean said. “Why would you get her a present?”

“I’m not entirely sure of the etiquette in this situation. Besides, I’m already out so I might as well. What do teenage girls like?”

“You’re the evils step uncle. She doesn’t expect you to get her a present.”

“As I said, I’m already out,” Crowley said. “Teenagers like the internet don’t they? I’ll get her a computer.”

“Claire already has a computer.”

“I’ll get her a better computer.”

Dean decided to stop arguing. Crowley talked for a while about his schedule and when Dean would expect him to be around before hanging up. Dean went back to his search for Claire’s list and then sat down and started calling parents. That went well for the most part, but Martha could go straight to hell for spending an entire half an hour making “absolutely sure” that there would be adult supervision during the party.

***A Week Later***

Claire had four people over, since Martha’s kid had canceled at the last second. Dean got a call from her wife Lisa apologizing for Ben not being able to come over, and decided that he liked Martha’s wife a lot better than he liked Martha. She had even said that Ben would drop off a present for Claire before they went to whatever event Martha had made up so her son wouldn’t spend the night at a girl’s house. Dean tried to insist it wasn’t necessary, but Lisa said they were going to do it either way.

Claire seemed to really take it to heart that Ben wasn’t coming and spent the afternoon moping before her other friends started showing up. Alex was the first one there with Jody saying that she could only stay for a moment and saying a quick hello to Dean before she was back out the door. Alex and Claire seemed to have decided they really were friends at this point because the two of them talked excitedly with each other at a mile a minute. Dean eavesdropped for a while and after hearing about the douchebag Alex had just dumped decided that Claire was allowed to date nobody ever.

After that, Krissy and Jesse and Lucas showed up, and all four of them started arguing over what movies they were going to marathon. Jesse and Claire were firmly committed to horror movies while Krissy wanted to watch superhero movies. Lucas suggested Dead Poet Society, but after that he mostly just kept quiet while the other four continued to argue.

Cas showed up half an hour after the pizza and Claire paused the movie so that she could say hi. Dean figured this was as good a time as any for cake, and brought it out. Just after Claire had blown out her candles the doorbell rang and Dean went to answer it.

Ben was standing there with a woman Dean assumed was Lisa standing behind him. He had a box in his hands and called Dean sir, and Ben’s nervous swallowing almost made Dean laugh. He let the boy in and then watched as Claire lit up when he handed her her present. Lisa smiled at that.

“Claire seems like a really great girl,” she says. “It was nice of you to take her in. Ben nearly had an aneurysm when she moved away.”

“Yeah, she’s the best,” said Dean. “I’m glad she’s around her old friends after what happened too. I don’t think she’s been taking it well. Thanks, by the way, for bringing Ben over.”

“No problem,” said Lisa. They were interrupted by a loud honking from the front of the house. Dean glanced at Lisa’s harried expression.

“She seems like a handful.”

“Sometimes,” Lisa said with a quick smile. She called Ben away then and the two left, but Claire had opened up his present and found a bracelet that it was pretty clear the Ben kid had spent some time making. It was cute.

Her other presents were cool, too, though. Cas had gotten her a book and a grumpy cat, since “Dean won’t ever get you a real one.” Dean had (secretly) agreed to take her to a shooting range, which Cas was not allowed to know about. Claire had been surprised but excited to get a new computer from Crowley, who had dropped the present off earlier in the day and was off doing whatever criminals did in their spare time. Jesse had gotten her several comics; Lucas had given her a portrait of her he’d drawn, which was actually pretty good for a kid his age; Krissy had gotten her a book of mythology. Claire opened up Alex’s last and frowned thoughtfully at the journal and pens she’d gotten her.

“I wrote in a couple of them,” Alex had said. “It helped. I thought it might help with you too.”

Claire had hugged Alex after that for a few seconds, before letting go and collecting herself. Dean suspected that this was a reference to the fact that Alex’s parents had also been killed, and she had had quite a few conversations with Claire about it. The kids all got back to their movie marathon after that, though Dean noticed that Alex was never very far from Claire.

Cas left late that night, and Dean decided to stay up until all the munchkins had gone to sleep. He saw Claire smiling at her phone a lot and caught sight of Ben’s name a few times during the night. At about three in the morning every one was asleep and Dean turned off the television and left them in the living room and headed to the kitchen to eat a bowl of cereal. He was surprised to find he’d miscounted and one of the teenagers was in the kitchen drinking a cup of water and looking upset.

“Hey, Alex,” Dean said with a wave. Alex didn’t look up, just nodded slightly. “You okay?”

“Why does she like Ben so much anyway?” Alex said, staring down at her water. “All she does is talk about him.”

Dean absolutely did not want to deal with this.

“Well…”

“Why doesn’t she like me?”

“Alex-“

“Can I go home? Will you call Jody for me?” Alex asked, clearly not wanting any actual answers, just wanting to leave. Dean nodded and called Jody for her. The sheriff was not happy to be called at three in the morning but she agreed to come anyway. Dean told her not to give Alex too hard a time.

Claire asked what happened the next morning and Dean told her that Alex had gotten sick and had to go home.


	5. Part II

Castiel hummed as he looked over the pages that Charlie had sent. He found it hard to sleep at night since he’d been living alone, and analyzing the case had become something of a pet project.

Dean had called one night on his burner and told him just how disturbed he was to read the blatant discrimination that was apparently occurring. Castiel had already called Charlie several times about the cases she was using in order to spearhead child custody law reform. The cases she had chosen consisted mostly of people who were married after their spouses had died. None of the cases she had were anyone that had never attempted a relationship with their soul mate and Charlie had explained it was because she wouldn’t be able to win the case. Unfortunately a large block of the country’s judicial system was headed by people who believed in a certain amount of moral principle, denoted from their various branches of Christianity. Charlie said she could argue that they weren’t respecting the separation there should be between church and state, but she doubted that would hold any weight without smaller wins under her belt.

After that, Castiel had gone on one of his research binges. Without Dean there to drag him away, he’d ended up spending hours on his computer each day. He found dozens of cases of people with blank chests being refused medical treatment and doctors who were still willing to perform the shots that stop soul mate’s names from appearing were frequently sent death threats, and Cas found several cases where their homes had been set on fire.

There were also many cases of non-soul mates being denied certain services for religious reasons. Churches didn’t have to bury them next to each other, and could block non-soul mate couples from attending services. A lot of churches had lobbying groups that insisted on laws that made it more difficult for non-soul mates to get married, stay married, or apply for government assistance that soul mate couples would be granted. Castiel thanked God that neither he nor Dean had ever gotten sick in the last fifteen years.

He further analyzed various statistics and found that a shocking twenty percent of all homeless people were divorced soul mates whose spouse hadn’t wanted to separate. Legally, they were allowed to seize all property belonging to their soul mate if they decided to go through the divorce if it wasn’t mutual. This occurred most commonly in abusive relationships, and the statistics on the amount of spouses that reported their soul mate engaged in emotionally and physically abusive relationships was awful, and well below the divorce rate.

Cas moved away from the papers of Charlie’s case and went back to the glow of his computer. The digital clock in the top right corner read 1:30 a.m., and Cas knew he had an early shift the next morning, but he still clicked open a search engine and began searching international laws regarding soul mate couples. The words blurred before his eyes and he nearly drifted off to sleep several times, but he stuck at it anyways. About half an hour later, large hands rested gently on his shoulders and Cas sank back, knowing who it was.

“What are you doing here?”

“Claire spent the night at Krissy’s, so I snuck out,” Dean said, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Cas, baby, you’ve got to sleep.”

“I got distracted,” Cas said. Dean draped across his back and shut the laptop for him. Cas closed his eyes for a minute taking in the warmth against his back. Then Dean was gone and Cas followed him back to his room. Dean wrapped himself loosely around him when he got into bed and Cas wondered how Dean supposed he was supposed to sleep the next night without him now.

“We haven’t done this in a while,” Dean said, rather uselessly. Castiel hummed and pulled Dean’s arms tighter around him. He kissed one of Dean’s knuckles briefly. “You know child services stopped by for the six month check up. Claire is officially good to go with us.”

“You’ve told me.”

“I could do this more often.”

“You don’t need to sacrifice your sleep for me, Dean.”

Dean pressed his lips against his neck and back and then shook his head.

“Trust me, baby, I need this,” he said, softly like he didn’t want anyone to hear. Cas tried to soak in the words, tried to hold them close to his heart. He knew the next day he’d feel just as alone as he had since he and Dean had moved away from each other, but for now at least things were as they should be. “Go to sleep.”

So, on that night at least Castiel did go to sleep.

***That Weekend***

Castiel hurried to the door when Claire was dropped off, happy to see his niece and eager for any time he could spend with Dean. He was disappointed when he saw it was Crowley dropping her off. The criminal looked him up and down before walking through the door, effectively inviting himself in. Cas tried not to bristle.

“Nice place.”

“Why are you here?” Cas said. He knew he was failing at not being hostile but it was hard to be pleasant to a man that had taken his legal place in Dean’s life. Crowley rolled his eyes, but something was off about him.

“Try to calm down, tiger,” Crowley said. “I’m only the messenger. Claire won’t be coming because her appendix is about ready to burst. Dean is with her at the hospital and asked that I come and tell you because his phone died.”

“Claire’s at the hospital?” Castiel said sweeping past Crowley to his new car. Crowley’s was blocking him from getting out of his space in the complex and he glared back at the criminal before he saw that Crowley was pointing toward the passenger side seat. Castiel sat inside with a dissatisfied expression.

“She’s going to be fine.”

“Shut up and drive me to the hospital,” said Castiel back.

“Anything for the mister’s mistress.”

Castiel thought about beginning a speech about how he would never be offended to be called a woman, or that Dean’s relationship with Crowley was a fabrication, but decided ultimately that it wasn’t worth the effort. He just wanted to be by Claire’s side as quickly as possible.

They got to the hospital within fifteen minutes and Castiel exited and practically ran to the doors. Once he went inside he tried to get access to where Claire currently was, but once they’d checked his ID against the system they’d explained to him that they couldn’t let him see her, since he’d been denied custody and didn’t have permission from Claire’s guardians.

“Dean will let me see her,” Castiel insisted. “Go ask him.”

“Look, I can’t,” said the nurse, looking back down at her computer. “Rules say I gotta stay by this desk. So I gotta stay by this desk.”

“Ask someone else to do it then!”

“This is a hospital, sir. We have lives to save.”

Castiel was a few seconds from a shouting match before Crowley slipped by him and put down his own ID. The nurse scanned it and said he could go in, which made Castiel even angrier before Crowley nodded toward him.

“The giraffe can come too,” he said to the nurse. She let them both through and Castiel rushed down the hallways, surprised when Crowley kept pace with him. They found Dean waiting inside a room where Claire was moaning in pain and a doctor was asking her what her levels was so he could determine what level of medication he needed to put her on. Dean was sat next to her, and Cas could see the bloodless white it had turned from Claire squeezing it. He was at her side in a moment.

“Claire, don’t worry. You’re going to be fine,” Cas said, sweeping her hair from her face. The doctor politely asked Castiel to move out of the way and Castiel did reluctantly after Claire had assured him through gritted teeth that it wasn’t that bad. The doctor explained to her that he was going to have her drink a special smoothie so they could run a test and ensure that it was appendicitis that Claire was suffering from, though the doctor said he was confident that was the problem. He told the three men that only one person could go with her to do the scan, and Dean offered to go since his hand was already permanently damaged. Claire laughed at that before seizing up again in pain. Crowley and Castiel were moved to the waiting room.

“The chances of anything going wrong are around one percent,” Crowley said conversationally.

“Stop talking.”

“I was trying to be helpful,” he muttered. He glanced toward the clock and then back to the waiting room which had several other people in it. “How long do these sorts of tests take do you think?”

“I don’t know. You can leave if you have somewhere to be.”

“Nah. I want to make sure the squirt gets out okay,” said Crowley nonchalantly as he took a seat. Castiel bit back any comment he might have made to that when he noticed the man’s foot tapping nervously. He paused in his own concerns for a moment to see past the cavalier tone Crowley had been using to see that he seemed worried. At the very least concerned.

Castiel sat down next to him and wondered about it.

Crowley had no reason to care about Claire. And it was obvious he wasn’t someone that spared affection easily, nor was he someone that wanted to be seen as sentimental. Claire had no complaints about him, but she’d never said much about Crowley either. Both her and Dean complained of his habits, and often the same ones. Dean had hooked Claire on an assortment of telenovelas that apparently overlapped with the evening news which Crowley preferred. In general though, Claire didn’t mention anyway that Crowley had affected their lives much. Then again, Castiel hadn’t asked. The little details he had been getting were bad enough as it was for his self esteem.

“It’s nice of you to stay,” Castiel said at last.

“The ruse wouldn’t work very bloody well if I abandoned my husband and adopted kid at the hospital now would it?” said Crowley.

“And that’s truly all this is to you? A ruse?” asked Castiel.

“I don’t do feelings, kitten,” said Crowley squinting at hims suspiciously. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Castiel said. He tried to think what to say, but the awkwardness stretched between them. Castiel cleared his throat. “He will pick me in the end. You must know that.”

“And if he didn’t?” Crowley asked after a moment.

“I would accept his choice,” Castiel said, for a moment imagining the loneliness that would bring. “But it won’t come to that.”

Crowley eyed him curiously but accepted this answer with a modicum of grace.

“For what it’s worth, this is still a business deal. Like I said, I don’t do feelings.”

Claire was alright, but Castiel knew now that there was at least some truth to the concept that soul mates felt a connection of some sort regardless of personal choice. He just hoped that the bond he and Dean had built between him over the years was stronger than that.

When Claire was recovering, some of her friends came to visit with “Get Better” cards. Ben’s was the one she kept beside her bed and Castiel didn’t miss the fact that he kissed her on the cheek before leaving. Dean had filled him in during one of their stolen evenings that Claire had started dating Ben. He was a sweet boy, and Castiel liked him. Claire certainly seemed to light up when he was in the room, and the two talked so much that the nurse was forced to ask him to leave. Krissy and Lucas also stopped by and apologized that Jesse couldn’t make it since he was staying with his grandparents at the moment. It was a little bit before they were about to release her that Alex ran in.

“Claire, are you okay?” she asked, looking her up and down.

“Aw, nice to know you care,” said Claire with a smile. “Dude, you haven’t called me in like two weeks. How busy can school be?”

Now knowing that Claire was fine, Alex visibly calmed herself and smiled sarcastically.

“Well, when you actually study, slacker-“

“Shut up,” said Claire. She laughed and winced slightly. “I’m going to have a huge fucking scar.”

“Please don’t curse,” said Castiel.

“Don’t worry, everyone digs scars,” said Dean at the same time. Claire rolled her eyes at them. Alex sat in the chair by her bed and looked at the cards.

“Sorry I didn’t get you anything,” she muttered. “When Jesse called he didn’t know what was happening. He made it sound like you were dying.”

“Nope, I’m fine,” said Claire. “But since you’re already here, wanna stay over at Cas’? That’s okay right?” Claire said, zeroing in on Cas with her best sympathetic face. Castiel half smiled at it and nodded before she looked back to Alex. “We could watch a movie. Catch up.”

Alex agreed and then started braiding Claire’s hair as they waited for her to be officially released. Castiel noticed that Dean looked slightly uncomfortable looking at the two of them, but dismissed it as unimportant. Whatever issues he had with Alex, she made Claire happy and Castiel was glad for anyone who could do that.

***Several Weeks Later***

Claire and Castiel had been working through her history homework. Cas was surprised how many references their were to the success of soul mate couples now. In the textbooks of his childhood, there hadn’t been none, but there was certainly a kind of resurgence of religious pride in the rightness of soul mates that was currently happening. Certain historical figures were being outright ignored because they didn’t fit into the narrative the textbook was attempting to sell. Castiel kept his mouth shut about it though. He knew Claire could think for herself and didn’t need him to point out the issues that were contained within.

When they were down, Claire started asking questions.

“Hey, Cas?” Claire asked, glancing over the recent history box that announced the illegality of the melanin prevention shots. “Why did you and Dean get those shots? Was it because you were in love?”

“Yes and no,” Castiel admitted. “I was in love with Dean, though when we were younger I was never all that certain it went both ways. I had trouble breaking with tradition, and my parents were very unhappy to hear that I had let my “anarchist” friends convince me to do something they considered to be idiotic and reckless. I can honestly say I went through with it because I hated the control they had over my life. I wanted the option to choose who I ended up with, whether that had been Dean or someone else. Those tattoos take choice away.”

“And if I wanted to do the same thing?” Claire asked even more quietly. Castiel hadn’t been expecting this question for a long time. Claire was only fifteen after all.

“There are consequences,” Castiel said after a few moments of stunned silence. “If and when you make that decision, you have to know that people are going to look at you differently. They won’t just think you made an effort with your soul mate and it didn’t work out. They’ll think you’re actively going against a system just to be rebellious and dangerous. They’re going to assume that you want to tear down their lives. The success or failure of your relationships will suddenly become about the fact that you could have been happy if you’d just found out who your soul mate was. And no one thinks that you want a stable relationship. Instead they’ll assume that not wanting to commit to your soul mate means you don’t want to commit to anyone. People will treat any romantic gesture as a precursor to sex, and nothing more. And those are just the social repercussions. I don’t want you to hear me saying that what I did was the right thing to do for me and think there aren’t consequences.”

“And that’s really what it’s like?” Claire said, sounding concerned for a different reason than Cas had hoped. She looked at him as though she could see him too well. “All the time?”

“It was like that, yes. All the time.”

***One Year Since the Divorce***

Castiel picked up the phone and called Sam.

“Hey Cas!” Sam answered. It was clear that he was driving. “It’s good to hear from you man. I’ve missed you at family dinners.”

Castiel didn’t particularly miss Winchester family dinners. Sam was an excellent friend to him, but John Winchester had never liked the fact that he wasn’t his son’s soul mate and had never bothered to hide it. The Campbells weren’t much better either.

Then again, at least they still spoke to Dean more than just at Christmas every year.

“Sam, I think I’ve found something,” Castiel said, smiling triumphantly at his computer. “But I can’t involve Dean in this.”

“Cas,” Sam said, voice warning. “Dean gets pissed when you do stuff without telling him.”

“I know, but I want to build a court case,” said Cas. “And if I tell him, he might do something reckless. We can't risk him losing custody of Claire. However, I don't have any custody that I need to fear losing. I’ve been speaking regularly with Charlie and she managed to spark some minor reforms at child services with her cases along with testimony from a whistleblower, code name…” Castiel checked his sheet. “Samandriel. And she tells me he’s got more evidence of corruption that he has yet to go public with.”

“Okay?”

“And I’ve found a recent study competed in Russia that shows that one hundred people who participated in a study where they got the shots and were allowed to pair themselves as they pleased tended to pick their soul mates as romantic partners only half the time. Other times, they were merely good friends, and sometimes they had strong feelings of hatred or dislike for each other.”

“Why is this important Cas?”

“The researchers concluded that the name might not be a method of placing couples together but connecting two people. I did more research into it, and many cultures have old traditions that are in direct conflict with what we now consider to be standard practice with regard to soul mates. Any country with a Christian, Muslim, or Jewish majority tends to view soul mates in our traditional sense, but smaller communities that were less affected by imperialism and the spread of these religions have an array of ways that they’ve interpreted what is meant by the tattoos.”

“So what you’re saying is that our current conception of what a soul mate is isn’t the only one.”

“Or possibly even the oldest,” Castiel affirmed. “There has to be a case here somewhere. If we can link systematic discrimination to the government and religion we might find a way to appeal against this as a constitutional infringement on human rights, but I need your help to find it. Charlie’s already working on trying to set a precedent for protection against abuse in same sex soul mate couples, and she can’t spare the time.”

Sam hesitated, and Castiel knew there was a good chance he would refuse. He worked just as many hours as Cas did treating sick animals, and adding more to his work load was likely not on his to do list.

“Okay, Cas,” Sam said after a second’s thought. “Let’s do this.”


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel alerted Amelia to the fact he would be taking a month off of work six months in advance. She didn’t like it at all, but when he explained why he was going to be doing what he was, she accepted it and decided to hire a replacement while he was gone. Castiel was present at Kevin’s interview and was glad to see that the boy seemed more than capable of caring for the animals that were brought in while Castiel was away.

Telling Claire and Dean was a different story.

For one thing, Castiel waited. He knew he shouldn’t, but he didn’t want to deal with the months of questions, and he knew that Dean would do his best to convince Castiel to tell him where he was going and what he was doing. And, if Castiel was being honest with himself, he knew that Dean’s efforts would work. If he pressed for answers long enough, Castiel would break down and provide them because Dean was the one asking. It was better that he not know.

Sam didn’t agree of course, though he was quickly persuaded that Dean couldn’t know that they were going to be attempting a court case against discrimination on the basis of non-soul mated status. For one thing, Castiel didn’t want any of the information he was obtaining being traced back to Dean in case it was less than legally obtained (which he and Sam couldn’t use in court but could release to reporters to sway public opinion before the case began), nor did he want Dean to search out any of the information on his own and risk losing Claire.

In the meantime, Castiel worked and worked and hardly paused to eat or sleep. Both Amelia and Sam worried about him incessantly, but Castiel couldn’t seem to stop the restless feeling that kept him up researching each night. The only times he managed to sleep through the night was when Dean snuck away, which Castiel noticed was more and more often. He suspected it had something to do with the bags under his eyes, or perhaps Sam had encouraged Dean to look after Castiel.

It was nice for a while, but eventually it was no longer feasible. Dean went back to working long hours at the station after the lull in action that had allowed him to see Castiel so often, and Castiel went back to his manic pace of researching. He started about this time to reach out to Charlie as well, since she was finishing her most recent case and might be interested in joining him and Sam with the one they had been building. She happily agreed and was willing to bring her whistleblower from child services with her, which was good news for their case. If they could prove their was systematic discrimination and link it to religious convictions, they could make a good case for various government agencies refusing to recognize the separation between church and state. Sam had pulled up several precedents for this, and all things considered, they had a strong case. What was more, if they could get a decent amount of media coverage, congressional action might follow in order to prevent further discrimination and encourage education and media that offered examples of what accurate non-soul mate couples might look like.

Or at least that’s what Castiel hoped on his better days.

Sam eventually took over the researching duties and in an act of tough love told Castiel that he didn’t want anymore of the research Castiel was producing. Having nothing to do with his hands just made Castiel’s insomnia worse, and he ended up asking Charlie if he could work with her on developing her side of the case, which she agreed to. Cas proceeded to spend many of his nights at her office, and was introduced to energy drinks, which left him even more keyed up, but were an easy way for both him and Charlie to stay awake.

Sam was not pleased when he found out about this and told Charlie not to let Cas help on her side of the case anymore until he’d gotten one week of eight hours of sleep a night. Castiel tried to comply, if only to get Sam off of his case, but he couldn’t seem to hack it. They were getting closer and closer to their trial, and were now just collecting as much extra evidence as they could before heading out to the town Charlie and Sam had picked for its judge. As the days wound down, Castiel became more and more restless, and he knew by the way Amelia always shooed him away from greeting the owners of their new patients that he looked terrible. It was driven home when just several days before Castiel was scheduled to leave with Sam and Charlie for the case, Dean managed to find time to sneak in again.

Cas practically jumped out of his seat from where he had been trying to read The Odyssey when he felt a pair of hands on his back.

“Hey, Cas,” said Dean, sounding happy. Cas tried to muster up a smile in return, but stopped the second he saw Dean’s face fall. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I’m fine.”

Dean sighed and moved so he was stood in front of Cas’ chair, all earlier signs of playfulness now gone.

“Cas, if something is going on with you, you’d tell me, right?”

Castiel shifted uneasily in his chair and knew Dean knew him too well to not notice. Dean raised his eyebrows expectantly and Castiel searched for a truth that wasn’t the one he still knew he couldn’t tell Dean. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to tell him. He didn’t know anymore.

“I can’t sleep when you’re not here,” Cas said, looking off to the side.

“Well, then you won’t have to,” said Dean. “Cas, if I knew it was this bad I would have done more to see you. I just… work got crazy and-“

“I know. I wasn’t trying to guilt you into seeing me more,” Cas said, brushing Dean off of him and shutting his book. Dean backed off a second with a worried frown before he started speaking again.

“Sam mentioned that you weren’t doing so great, but I figured you’d call me if you were having issues.”

“And say what? I’m a grown man, I don’t need help to go to sleep at night.”

That wasn’t strictly true, because Castiel did seem to need help going to sleep at night, but the thought of needing Dean there with him didn’t sit well with him. Because he had to be okay if their arrangement didn’t work out in his favor. If Dean, despite everything he had said, decided that he preferred his soul mate to Cas then Cas needed to know he would come out the other side of the ordeal himself.

“Look, Cas…” Dean started trailing off. He sighed and sat down on Castiel’s sofa. Castiel joined him after a second, trying not to let his annoyance show too clearly. “Sam told me that you asked to help him on one of his legal cases. Something about parking tickets. And he told me that he had to ask you to stop because it was messing you up.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, god damn it,” muttered Dean. “This is about Jimmy, isn’t it?”

That caught Cas off guard.

“What?”

“See that’s what I thought. You don’t even realize you’re doing it. You never got to grieve for him, Cas, and I am so sorry about that.”

“This is not about Jimmy.”

“You’re not sleeping. You’re burying yourself in work,” Dean pointed out. “And I think Claire is doing the same thing, because she’s looking at how you’re dealing with it. You used to call him every other day and now you don’t even talk about him.”

“Like you would know,” Cas snapped back. Dean flinched, but didn’t back away. “This isn’t about Jimmy. He’s been dead for almost two years. Trust me, I’ve come to terms with that.”

“Have you?” Dean pushed. “You know you haven’t celebrated your birthday since he died.”

Because it was Jimmy’s birthday too.

“What does that prove Dean?” Cas asked. He was tired. He didn’t want to deal with this conversation. He couldn’t tell Dean that he was spending all his time trying to improve the lives of people like them. He was trying to do something bigger than him, and yes maybe the idea of changing things had possessed him in a way, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of dealing with Jimmy’s death in a healthy way.

“It doesn’t prove anything, but I know what it’s like to feel like you’re alone in your grief. I get that I can’t be there for you right now, and trust me that’s killing me. But you need to stop isolating yourself. When’s the last time you went out for fun, with Sam or Amelia or literally anyone?”

Castiel honestly couldn’t remember, now that he thought about it. Still, that made him uncomfortable so he decided to change the subject.

“We could be doing something fun.”

“Yeah, I know that trick too,” Dean said, crossing his arms in disapproval. So sex was off the table then. “I need you to be taking care of yourself and you’re not. If it’s not about Jimmy, it’s not about Jimmy, but please level with me what the hell this is about then. Because you look like a mess.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m serious Cas. Get help.”

Castiel closed his eyes and counted to ten to quell the surge of anger and make sure he wouldn’t say anything he regretted. By the time he had finished an idea had occurred to him that nicely accounted for the time he would be spending away on the case with Charlie and Sam while also getting Dean off his back about working too hard.

“I’m going on vacation actually. In a few days.”

“What?” Dean asked, clearly confused at how the conversation had turned on him. “When exactly were you going to tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

That did not get a pleasant look from Dean. He looked like he was about to say something, then thought better of it and grabbed his coat so he could leave.

“Enjoy your vacation then,” he said at the door. Castiel wasn’t sure how he was supposed to sleep after seeing the face that was accompanied by that, so he picked up his book and went back to reading. Everything would be better after he got back, he decided. Everything would be fine.

***Two Weeks Later***

Castiel had been watching the trial and organizing material for Sam and Charlie for two days now, and he had no idea whether or not they were winning or losing. Despite his extensive research, a lot of the terminology was going over his head, and he couldn’t derive any sort of sympathy or disdain from Judge John Uriel. At least not more disdain than he seemed to show everyone who dared speak to him. CPS seemed nervous, perhaps, but that might just be because they were worried that the media might hear about the case, something Charlie had prevented from happening so far in order to prevent the likely backlash against non-soul mate couples that might occur.

At long last they had presented the entirety of their initial cases, and Judge Uriel had decided they had enough evidence to move forward, and Castiel had slumped forward in relief. After they’d left the court room, Sam had hugged him and for the first time in a long time Cas had been able to manage a genuine smile. Charlie had high fived both of them and then said she needed to get back to work putting their case together and making sure their witnesses would be willing to speak. Sam and Cas ended up going out to eat in celebration, and Castiel let himself be lighthearted for a while.

Then he saw Sam get a call on his phone and knew from his expression who it was.

“Hey Dean,” Sam greeted, obviously trying to sound casual. If Sam’s response was anything to go by, Dean noticed. “I don’t sound weird, you sound weird.”

Sam hesitated a moment and looked across the table, guilt flashing across his eyes.

“No, sorry, I still don’t know where Cas is,” he lied. Cas looked down and away. “Dean, maybe he just needs space, okay?”

Sam listened to the rest of a mostly one sided conversation while Castiel slunk further and further down into his chair and Sam leveled a glare at him towards the end of the call. At last he hung up and Castiel tried to indicate with a look that he didn’t want to talk about it. Sam didn’t care.

“You need to call him.”

“I don’t want to lie to him,” Cas said. Dean would be able to tell. He would make assumptions or demand answers. Sam clearly didn’t think this rationale was good enough.

“Then don’t. I get that you’re worried he’ll do something, but that’s not all this is and I think we both know that. You’re pushing him away, and you know what? You’re pushing Claire away too. Hell, for a while the only person you would talk to is Charlie and that’s because she was actually letting you work yourself to death.”

Castiel didn’t have anything to say to that, so he went back to poking at his dinner with his fork, appetite gone. Sam let out a sigh.

“Please just call him, Cas.”

***Several Days Later***

Cas hadn’t called him. He’d taken out the phone to do so a couple of times, but every time he couldn’t quite manage it. Instead he’d go to his messages and listen to the worried ones Dean had left for him and the quietly concerned ones Claire had left as well. He couldn’t figure out what was keeping him from reaching out, but he knew it was rooted somewhere in fear, because every time he really thought of reaching out a lump grew in his throat and his stomach felt heavy and he just put the phone back down again.

The case was going well, at least according to Sam and Charlie. They were having their witnesses testify the next day. One of them was a woman named Beth, and the other a man named Alfie and both of them had been disillusioned by the restrictions placed on where children could go when they needed to escape unsafe situations. Children were almost never taken from soul mate couples, even when they should be, whereas non-soul mate couples and single parents were watched like hawks.

Charlie, Sam, and Cas had dinner with the witnesses the night before they were going to testify, and Cas found himself connecting with Alfie quickly. He was kind, and seemed to sense that Cas needed a certain amount of gentleness at the moment, despite Castiel’s constant attempts to prove to everyone that he needed nothing of the sort. He was also intelligent, compassionate, and believed in what he was doing. Castiel had a lot of respect for someone who was willing to risk their livelihood in order to do the right thing, and he and Alfie ended up having a long conversation that ended at Castiel’s door.

The witnesses were required to be there for several days, and Castiel found in Alfie someone he could open up to. It was partly because he was a stranger, and partly because he looked so harmless. Alfie had opened up about some of his background as well, including the fact that his soul mate had been a childhood friend that had died when he was five, and that was one of the reasons he had always been so sympathetic to people who weren’t soul mates trying to find love and family, and why he had been so disappointed in CPS.

They had been talking late into the night in the kitchen of Castiel’s hotel room when it happened. It being that Cas had been talking about something or other and Alfie had… just leaned forward and stolen a kiss. Cas had frozen in confusion and by the time he had realized what had happened, he heard a loud clearing of someone’s throat that had both he and Alfie jumping. Cas turned to see none other than Crowley standing there, looking at him in a mix between amusement and surprise.

“What are you doing here?” Castiel asked immediately. In his mind he was already panicking. It had looked like… But he hadn’t done anything to encourage Alfie, had he? But if Dean found out…

“I got hired out by loverboy. He wanted to know where you were, and if you were safe. Said you hadn’t been answering your phone. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to hear why.”

“Crowley,” Cas said quietly. It was a threat. Crowley just smiled and looked over Castiel’s shoulder at where Alfie was still standing.

“I mean if you were going to cheat, I suppose he is rather cute. You have my full support.”

“I wasn’t… It was not what it looked like. Alfie was confused,” Castiel said, ignoring the embarrassed and confused apologies coming from behind him, as Alfie had realized that Castiel was clearly involved with someone else. “Are you going to tell Dean about this?”

“I could,” said Crowley. Castiel could see the consideration in his eyes. “I don’t know whether or not I will yet. It is a rather compromising piece of information. Especially when you’ve left poor Dean all alone and with this news, he’ll have no one to comfort him but little old me.”

“If you fucking touch him-“ Castiel started. Crowley cut him off with a look.

“You’ll do what, kitten?” he asked. “I don’t want him, don’t you worry. But he is pretty, and I’m sure a mouth that sharp is gifted in other areas. Am I right?”

“Dean is mine,” Castiel said. Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“Then maybe you should act like it and bloody well call him. I’m rather tired of his moping.”

Castiel waited for Crowley to go on, and he finally did by making an exasperated gesture at Castiel failing to grasp what he was saying.

“Get in contact with him or I tell him you’ve been off entertaining other men. Get the picture?”

He left after that, and Alfie wasn’t far behind him, still apologizing over and over despite Castiel telling him that he wasn’t angry at him. Finally he was alone and he knew that he finally had to bite the bullet and pick up the phone. He reached for it, slowly dialed in Dean’s number and waited as it began to ring.


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel couldn’t deal with the silence. He glanced up at where Dean was standing every few seconds, and a few times it looked as though Dean was about to start speaking and then he would grit his teeth and look away again. At long last, Castiel broke.

“Where’s Claire?” he asked, a harmless enough question. He knew Dean had brought her with him when he had driven up to Boston after Castiel had called him yesterday. Dean jumped at the question, and he finally managed to make eye contact.

“Sam took her out for lunch,” he said. Those words seemed to open up whatever had been preventing Dean from speaking, because he didn’t stop there. “She was really worried about you, did you know that? We didn’t know where you were, if you were okay, if you were even fucking alive-“

“I said I was sorry.”

“That’s not good enough!” Dean yelled. Cas had always hated it when Dean yelled at him. He looked down and could practically feel Dean sigh in frustration at seeing Castiel close himself off. It took a few seconds before Dean’s face flooded his view and Cas realized Dean had knelt down in front of him so he’d have nowhere else to look. “You have to realize you’re not just hurting yourself right now, Cas.”

“If this is about Alfie, I didn’t do anything. I called you and told you as soon as I could after, I would never-“

“God, you’re an idiot,” Dean said, cutting across his rambling with ease. “I’m not upset some bumbling kid kissed you because he didn’t know any better. I’m pissed because you’re happier spending hours talking to virtual strangers than you are to me. Because you left without telling me where you were going and didn’t answer the phone one god damn time. How hard would that have been, Cas? Just once to let me know you were okay. I’m mad because you made Sam lie about where you were. I’m mad because Claire thought you were dead and broke down sobbing in the middle of school out of worry for you. Because you lied to me for months and months on end. Because you didn’t trust me, ME, to understand what I could and couldn’t do on some stupid legal case,” he paused for breath, and Cas watched as the anger in his face fell to a kind of bitter sadness. “You, Castiel Novak, are a god damn fucking idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel tried again.

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t care that I’m sorry, or you don’t care about me?” Castiel asked carefully. Dean stared at him a moment, and when he finally responded.

“You don’t get to ask questions like that. You know how much I fucking love you, you asshole. You don’t get to manipulate me into comforting you after all the shit you put me through.”

“I never meant to hurt you, I just…”

“You just were lost in your own little world and didn’t think about anyone else.”

“I was thinking about everyone else. Dean, there are so many people that need the sorts of reform this case could lead to-“

“Forget the damn case, Cas! This is about you. Every time shit hits the fan you disappear. You did this when we were kids, too, remember?”

“That was years ago.”

“Yeah it was, but you know what I’m just realizing? It wasn’t just when I got kicked out or when your parents got pissed at you. It was right after Meg died.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You can’t handle grief. You’ve never been able to handle grief. You just pretend it doesn’t exist. For Jimmy, for her,” Dean twisted the last word, and Castiel could tell Dean was still angry that she was his soul mate. “You pretend and then you shove everyone away and you bury any kind of emotion in work because that’s easier than having to feel, isn’t it?”

“I’m not… That’s not…” Castiel said, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t about Jimmy.

There was something like sympathy in Dean’s face now, but it was still buried under layers of anger and deep hurt. Dean wasn’t going to forgive him. Castiel didn’t know how he’d let it all slip so quickly through his fingers.

“I want to say that I’m okay with this. That you figuring out however you have to deal is fine. But I’m not,” Dean got up and walked to the door. He paused, took a breath and looked around before saying one more thing: “Grow up, Cas.”

The door shut and Castiel couldn’t move. Logically, he knew he should. He should run after Dean and promise he was sorry, that he would be better. He should press kisses into his skin until he managed to pull out the affection he had grown so used to in his and Dean’s years together. He should be doing something to make it better, and instead he was sitting there paralyzed.

He was still sitting there half an hour later when a knock sounded at his door.

“Go away,” he growled at it, not caring if it was Dean at this point. He just wanted to be left alone after the verbal lashing he had received last time.

“It’s me,” answered a voice. Claire. Castiel found the strength to get up and answer the door, holding it open for her to step inside and dropping it in surprise when she fiercely hugged him. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m fine,” Castiel said, resting his hands on Claire’s back and rubbing soothing circles in. She let out a stuttering breath and Castiel felt every shred of guilt he had been ignoring hit him all at once with the force of a falling brick. “I’m so sorry Claire. I’m fine, I promise I’m fine.”

“You look just like dad,” she muttered into his side, and Castiel felt a sharp stab of pain from the comment. “I kept dreaming about him and mom dying, but then it was you too. I was so scared, Cas.”

“I know, and I am so, so sorry Claire,” Castiel said to her, perhaps a little gruffly, but he was only just managing to hold back tears now.

“I miss them so much. I couldn’t lose you too.”

Castiel felt something buckle inside of him, because perhaps Dean knew him better than he knew himself. Perhaps there was some truth to what he had said, because Claire was one of the few people against who he put up no shields, and in a few short words she had ripped open his the scar tissue surrounding his brother’s death.

“I… I miss him too,” Castiel admitted, for the first time he realized since Jimmy had died. “I miss him so much.”

Cas ended up making Claire a cup of tea and she sat down at his table and she started talking. She first brought up a story about a long ago halloween where she had dressed up as a vampire and Jimmy had insisted on learning how to do her makeup. Castiel didn’t respond at first, so she kept talking and he listened, feeling as though his insides were being tangled together by a fork. As she kept talking though, he found he had stories he wanted her to know too. Little pieces of Jimmy she hadn’t known, details from their childhood that made her laugh sadly or cry. They traded stories back and forth until late into the night, when Claire’s head hit the table and she startled back awake and Cas insisted she had to go to bed.

Cas sent Claire to the bed he had been using and then set up the pull out couch for himself, and pulled out his phone to let Dean know where Claire was. Dean’s response was terse, his irritation showing even through text. Castiel looked at the phone and bit into his lip before typing in a careful ‘I love you’ and sending it off before he could change his mind.

Dean read it. He didn’t send anything back.

***Last Day of the Case***

Castiel did his best to pay attention to Sam’s closing statements. He knew it was the sum of all of their hard work and he should be able to pick out the words his brother in law was saying, but every time he managed to refocus in, he was reminded of the sullen figure sat to his left.

Charlie had ended up not being needed for the closing statement, so she had asked to take Claire out to some of the museums that Dean had not thought about going to. Dean had for whatever reason decided this meant he should sit in on the trial.

Dean was wearing a suit and had his arms crossed and his gaze resolutely not on Cas. As Sam kept talking, Cas took out a sheet of paper and a pen and began to write. It was an apology, of course, and he almost didn’t hand it to Dean because the man had made it so clear he didn’t want Castiel’s apologies. What he did want was beyond Castiel.

He got the note back with only the words ‘I’m trying to listen to Sam’ printed in Dean’s block writing. Cas folded the note and went back to pretending to be paying attention.

All of that changed when the CPS representative took the floor. She had long blonde hair, a bright white dress, and an aura of fear that surrounded her. Her eyes flicked across the room and then she began to speak directly to Judge John Uriel.

“Here’s what it boils down to: What the prosecution is arguing for is immoral. We belong to a society built on certain values necessary to its continuing function. To pretend that couplings of non-soul mates is in any way normal or natural is sickening. This isn’t about religion, as my colleague has tried to argue so many times. This is about common human decency. We have soul mates for a reason, and the statistics back us up that people that stay with their soul mates are generally happier, healthier, and live longer. Of course we want that for children. I also want to remind you, your honor, that my client has not broken any laws. It is well within their rights to deny anyone they deem unfit guardianship of a child. These cases they’ve brought before us, and these witnesses have no legal standing. This isn’t a case of legality, it’s one of morality, and I think you should remember what the moral choice is here. And it isn’t allowing sexual deviants the option to be in charge of children’s well being.”

Castiel boiled in his skin at her aspersions on his character, however indirect they might be. He could feel Dean similarly tense with anger beside him and could imagine the scowl he would be aiming at her with ease. Lilith Prellis answered with a pointed grin and took her seat, obviously confident she had won. It would never stop surprising him, how much people hated anyone like Dean or like him. How they justified it behind ‘morality’ or ‘religious beliefs’ or plain lies because the thought of people finding each other outside of their narrow constructs frightened them.

Judge Uriel had called a recess as he deliberated, and to Castiel’s surprise Dean turned to him, since Sam had gone off to his bag to search for some paper or other.

“Can you believe that?” he hissed angrily. “Did you hear what that bitch said about us?”

“It would have been hard to miss,” Castiel said. Dean snorted and then seemed to remember he wasn’t speaking to Castiel and turned around again. Cas sighed. “Dean, I said I was sorry and I meant it. You were right. I didn’t know how to handle losing Jimmy and then losing you and Claire right afterward. I… I didn’t know how to ask for help. I still don’t, but I swear I’m trying.”

“You can’t just make me not be upset anymore Cas,” Dean said, and he sounded tired. “You fucked up. This is one of the consequences.”

Castiel felt something constrict in his throat, but what Dean was saying couldn’t be true. Not for…

“For forever?” Castiel asked quietly. Dean looked away. “Oh.”

Dean looked like he might say something about that, but Cas was glad he couldn’t when Judge Uriel returned and declared court was back in session. Because Dean wasn’t going to forgive him, and this had all been for nothing if Dean wouldn’t just-

Judge Uriel began to speak. He started by going over the case and repeating the charges and arguments that had been presented and then he paused to interject his own opinions. As he went on, Castiel grew less and less hopeful that they had managed to convince him. He made disparaging comment after disparaging comment about non-soul mate couples, and made it clear he agreed with Lilith that being with anyone but your soul mate was an immoral act. As he went off on a tangent that became more of a tirade and Castiel lost more and more hope. They were going to lose the case.

Finally, finally, Judge Uriel got around to when he was going to announce the verdict. To Castiel’s surprise, he felt someone that could only be Dean slip their hand into his. When Dean squeezed, still not looking at him, still obviously angry, but caught up in the uncertainty of the moment as they all waited for Judge Uriel to shoot down the case Cas and Sam had spent months and months building. Castiel squeezed back and listened.

“I have said that I find these kinds of couples against my own morals,” Uriel started out, causing Lilith to smile with approval. “However,” he said, and Castiel sat up a little straighter, not daring to hope. “My personal beliefs are not relevant in a court of law. Our government recognizes non-soul mate couples, and our constitution promises equal rights to all people, regardless of their moral character. We don’t question the validity of soul mate couples whose union is immoral in various regards. Finally, if no practical data can be put forth to show that children suffer from being raised by a non-soul mate couple, any laws to prevent it are certainly a religious reaction. The prosecution made a strong case for the influence of religious entities on our politics, and because of this I have chosen to rule in their favor.”

They’d won. Castiel couldn’t believe it.

“We won,” Sam said out loud. He laughed a little and turned to Dean and Cas with a wide grin on his face. “We actually won.”

“You did good, kid,” Dean said, sounding just as shocked as Castiel and Sam looked. It wasn’t over, of course. There would be appeals and more appeals for years until hopefully it ended up in the Supreme Court. But they’d won, and that was already a small miracle.

They were still shell shocked when they left the court. They were still shell shocked when they each made the long drive home. It started to really sink in when Cas was back in his little apartment, and then the case was splashed across a million magazines and Castiel got asked about it all the time by his patients. Some thanked him, some abused him, but almost all knew him.

Dean was left out of the coverage of the case. So if nothing else, at least Claire was safe, Castiel thought bitterly one night as he lay by himself and tried to think of something he could do or say to get Dean back. He came up blank each time, and as Claire’s seventeenth birthday rolled around, Castiel began to worry that Dea truly might never talk to him ever again.


	8. Chapter 8

Castiel wasn’t sure what to get Claire for her birthday. He had tried asking her on the weekend before her party, but Claire had just asked for gift cards so she could pick something out by herself, and Castiel was fairly certain that was not how giving gifts was supposed to work. Still he was tempted to take the out Claire had given him, as he was just realizing how much he had missed about her life with all of the time he had sunk into preparing for the case.

Charlie was going forward with the appeals process by herself, for the most part. Sam had handed the case to her without much complaint, since she had more experience in the area and he wanted to focus on other endeavors for the time being. It was a wise move as far as Castiel could see, since Charlie was already in contact with certain charities that rose money for non-soul mate court cases, was familiar with most of the cases they had used to challenge CPS and had gotten pretty far up in the courts with some of her other cases. If all went well, someday things would start to get better, at least legally. Public opinion was another thing.

Castiel had unlisted his address since the news of the case went up, and Sam had had to do the same thing. Business had gone up for him and Amelia, but so had incidents of vandalization that had to be cleaned up frequently. Castiel supposed he would take it though, since the increased business meant they had sufficient funds to hire Kevin Tran on permanently, which also lowered each of their workloads and created more time for Castiel to spend with Claire.

And he had been spending more time with Claire. She frequently came over to his apartment in the afternoons since Dean was usually at work and Crowley was wherever crime lords spent their time. Castiel was honestly glad he didn’t know on that front.

In any case, Claire was spending more time with him, but he still had no idea what she might want for her birthday, let alone what would be useful to her. Dean had always had a better sense of gifts than Castiel had, but he couldn’t ask Dean anything at the moment. Even confirming each weekend whether Claire would be staying with Castiel or with one of her friends was a source of anxiety for Castiel at this point.

He knew now that he had made mistakes, had honestly known even as he had been working on the case with Sam that he wasn’t handling it as well as he could have, but he had never expected quite this strong of a reaction from Dean. Anger, certainly. Castiel wasn’t exactly a stranger to Dean being angry at him, but usually they worked through it. Castiel didn’t know why this time was different and tried not to dwell on it, knowing he could make himself sick with the possibilities. The fact that Crowley of all people was such a big insecurity for him now was bad enough.

Sam had promised to talk to Dean for him, but had had little success where that was concerned, especially since Dean wasn’t exactly thrilled with his brother either. Castiel hadn’t asked Claire about it, because no matter what happened he didn’t want her to be forced to pick sides or feel like she had to walk on eggshells in front of either of them. She sometimes seemed like she wanted to address it, but she never did. Amelia hadn’t had much of use to say to him about it, and Charlie had been too busy to ask about the issue.

The day before Claire’s party, Castiel decided to go out and find a present for Claire with the hope that inspiration would strike. However, as he wandered at an outlet, nothing seemed personal or useful enough to give her. It had been so much easier when she had been young, he thought to himself as he passed a toy store and smiled at the children playing with the displays inside. Claire had always been so thrilled with anything just because it was signed ‘from your favorite uncles’. Castiel’s smile faltered slightly as he thought of how much Dean had loved visiting Claire as a kid, the way he would call her munchkin and carried her around on his hip. How Jimmy and Amelia had always made fun of him for it, but secretly been thrilled for the break. Simpler times, Castiel though to himself. Simpler times.

He took out his phone, and looked through to Dean’s name. He hesitated but then took a picture of the store and sent a message to Dean.

Remember when Claire was that small?

He didn’t really expect an answer. Let alone a quick one. Then again, he supposed he’d prefer no answer to the terse ‘What do you want, Cas?’ that he received in return. Cas swallowed and put his phone away. He didn’t need Dean’s help to find a present for Claire. He could do it by himself. He didn’t need Dean.

Castiel decided to run through what was and wasn’t a good idea before acting. He couldn’t hope to outmatch the funds Crowley could put toward a present, and besides, Claire would see through any expensive gift to see guilt and Castiel didn’t want to put her in that position. Dean would likely get her something small and then promise to do something with her that he wouldn’t tell Cas about. Castiel suspected this time it would be allowing her to finally drive his car, since Claire had had to practice on Sam’s or Castiel’s cars since she got her permit. Her friends would likely get her books or more personal gifts with inside jokes that Castiel doubted he would ever understand.

Castiel sighed and wondered what he could do to reach out to her and say that he was sorry for the months that he had slipped away from her without making it appear that he was only doing so because he was sorry. He wanted to reconnect to Claire, a process that had begun with spending more time with her, but could be furthered if he could just find the right gift.

Just as he was about to give up and resort to a gift card, when at last a thought occurred to Castiel. He was trying to remember what he had been doing at seventeen and remembered days spent with Dean and Meg and Jo and Benny, getting high and listening to music. Sometimes Jimmy had joined them, and he had always had one album he had loved so much. Castiel did his best to remember it, and could recall a few songs after a while. He hummed them to himself as he took out his phone and tried to look them up, but couldn’t recall the lyrics accurately enough to find them through the internet. He looked back to Dean’s message and figured what the hell. He asked what Jimmy’s favorite album had been back when they were young, because he knew Dean would remember. He looked down and saw that Dean had read the message. He breathed a sigh of relief when Dean began to type back.

***The Next Day***

Castiel was unsurprised to see the usual gang file in one by one into Dean’s apartment for Claire’s birthday. Ben had arrived first and helped set up, stopping every once in a while to tease Claire. The two had been dating for almost a year and a half at this point, and Castiel sometimes spared thought to worry about the two of them, as any parent would. Whatever your opinions on soul mates, finding out who yours was at eighteen tended to make relationships complicated.

Krissy and Jesse were the next to get there. Lucas showed up next, unsurprisingly late. Castiel watched Claire glancing at the clock as a half hour passed since her party had started and Alex still wasn’t there quite yet. He was glad when Jody showed up and explained Alex had lost track of time and Alex came in behind her with an apologetic smile. Claire grinned back at her and immediately dealed her into a card game the others were already playing. Castiel left them to their fun and went over to talk to Jody and ask how Alex had been. Jody was happy to talk to him and decided to stick around for a while. Dean didn’t stop by to talk to her while she was speaking to Cas, though, something she noticed pretty quickly.

“I do something to upset your better half?” she asked, mostly as a joke.

“Besides talking to me?” Castiel said back, not as lightly as he might have wanted. He sighed and looked down. “Dean and I are having issues. It’s my fault.”

“Really?” Jody asked, looking between the two of them. “That’s sad. And weird.”

“Not really, considering our… arrangement,” Castiel said. “There were always going to be issues, but I made it all worse working on the legal case when I should have been… present. Trying.”

Jody frowned.

“No, I mean weird because he calls me all the time and didn’t mention these problems,” she clarified, looking a little pissed off about that fact. “And , you know, when I asked him about you and Sam on that case, he said he was pretty damn proud of the both of you.”

“He did?” Castiel asked, caught by surprise. Jody nodded, eyebrows raised.

“Yep,” she said, popping the p.

Cas shrugged and looked away, because it didn’t matter.

“It’s irrelevant. He’s not mad about the case. He’s mad that I didn’t confide in him.”

“And the way you solve that… is by not talking to him more. Genius.”

“That isn’t my choice,” Castiel said, bristling. “And frankly it isn’t your business.”

Jody looked unimpressed with that rationale.

“Maybe it’s not. But I actually consider Dean to be a friend, and if there’s one thing I know about him it’s that he’s stubborn and he reacts to everything like no one is listening to him and most of the time no one is. And I’m sorry for caring, but you two working out is actually a little bit important for me,” she said. Castiel looked up trying to discern what that meant. “I’ll shut up, now.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is it important to you?”

Jody crossed her arms and looked off a little ways, as though she weren’t quite there anymore.

“I was married,” she said at last. “To my soul mate. I had a kid. And I lost them both in a car accident. I woke up in a hospital completely alone. I went some dark places after that, and one thing that hit me over and over again was that this was it. I was never going to fall in love again. I didn’t just lose my family, I lost any chance of ever having a family again. And I got over it. I started fostering Alex, and having someone to look after again helped, but in the back of my head I still thought that someday I was going to die and I would have spent my entire life alone. Sure, I was dating, but you know how it is. I didn’t actually expect to get anything out of it. But then I met you two, and you were just so obviously in love after years of being married and… it changed things for me. I started hoping that someday I could find something like that again, that the best days of my life weren’t necessarily all behind me. I know that nothing’s going to replace what I’ve lost, I’ll always know that, but… I wanted to fall in love again. You and Dean, you showed me what that could look like. How wonderful that could look like.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to me,” Castiel said, unable to think of anything else. Jody smiled at him. “I’m sorry, but he just doesn’t want me anymore.”

“I doubt that,” she said. “Or he wouldn’t keep sneaking glances when he thinks you aren’t looking.”

Cas spun around and caught Dean’s eyes for a second before he turned around. Cas swallowed.

“How about,” Jody said after a second. “I watch over the party for you two?”

“Jody-“

“Trust me, it’s no trouble.”

“I can’t. He doesn’t want to-“

Jody didn’t give him a chance to finish. Instead she walked over to Dean and had a very short and seemingly one sided conversation with Dean. He looked irritated at first and then seemed to cycle through a series of emotions before he wound up on resigned. Cas watched as he grabbed his keys and nodded subtly at Cas to follow him. After a moment’s hesitation, he did.

As Cas sat in the passenger seat, it hit him suddenly that he had missed this car. Missed being able to zone out while Dean drove and the immediate trust that nothing would go wrong. Missed the way the radio sputtered before Dean turned it off, and started driving, clearly without a destination in mind. Castiel knew the car had been chosen because it felt safe for Dean. It felt like a place he couldn’t be hurt.

“Dean-“

“For once, can you let me do the talking, Cas?” Dean asked. Castiel was slightly taken aback by the statement, but nodded his acquiescence. “Look, man I know you’re sorry. I just don’t think you understand why I’m mad at you.”

“Because I was keeping secrets.”

“No, because you obviously don’t think I can be trusted. With anything. You and me were supposed to be a team. We were supposed to share the hard stuff.”

“But-“ Cas started before remembered what Dean had said. He let him continue.

“I tried so hard to make sure you were okay, Cas. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have met me halfway. Why you wouldn’t call me when things started getting more difficult for you. Why you let me think things were okay when they weren’t fucking okay.”

Castiel was silent.

“Well?” Dean asked. Cas took that as his cue that he could speak now.

“It was easier, dealing with it myself,” Cas said after a while. “You and Claire and Crowley had your little life together-“

“Don’t bring Crowley into this.”

“How could I not? Do you have any idea what it’s like watching someone else just walk into the roles you used to have in life? How useless I felt? Unnecessary? I know I should have said something, but how could I? What was I supposed to say, Dean? That I was insecure and afraid and lonely and I didn’t know what to do about it?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I guess I wanted to be stronger than that,” Castiel said, staring out the window again. “I wanted to show I was worth something, soul mate or not.”

“You didn’t need to prove anything to me,” Dean said sadly. “You just needed to trust me. I don’t know how to do this if you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Castiel said after a few seconds of silence. Dean let out a noise of frustration.

“Listen to what I’m about to say and trust me that it’s true. I love you. I want to know when your life sucks and I want to be there to help make it a little bit better. I want to know when Amelia is being a freak, or the weird, gross animal surgery stories you have. I want to know the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. No matter what, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Castiel said back. He paused a moment. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

“Not even close, buddy,” Dean said. Castiel felt his heart sink. Then Dean reached out blindly with one of his hands to give him a light pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get there, okay?”

“Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

“I suppose I should thank Jody.”

“Yeah,” Dean said with a snort. “She used her ‘mom voice’ on me.”

“You’re practically the same age.”

“It was still convincing,” Dean said with a slight smile. It didn’t last very long before Dean was serious once again. “And I was always going to talk to you Cas. I guess I just wanted to… God this sounds awful. I wanted you to understand what you put me through. I’m sorry for that. And for acting like this was all your fault.”

“It was all my fault.”

“It really wasn’t, Cas. You were going through something, and I knew that. I’m not saying that excuses everything, but I picked a hell of a time to be unforgiving. It was just so frustrating watching you shut yourself off from me, and… we both made mistakes here. But it will get better.”

“You mean that?” Castiel asked.

“Hey, I told you when this whole thing started. Our success story is all that matters. And it is going to be you and me, Cas. When it’s all said and done, it’s going to be you and me.”

Castiel found himself stuck on the words and the determination with which Dean spoke them. It took a moment to process them before he realized that things truly were going to be okay soon. It would take work, and communication, and patience, but it would be okay.

“Good.”

Dean nodded, and turned the car around to head back to his apartment and that was all that needed to be said for that day. Everything was going to be alright.


	9. Part III

Claire was lying back on her bed as the album Cas had bought her played in the background. Alex took a swipe at one of her feet that was hanging over the edge of the bed, and Claire tucked it in so she couldn’t reach.

The music wasn’t Claire’s typical fair, but she appreciated what it was for. Connection. Cas had given her a link to his past and Jimmy’s past both. Dean’s too, really. The rhythm and beat of it hit her deep, and the more she listened the more she understood a piece of herself and a piece of the people that had come before her. It was a deep sense of not belonging, not fitting, not being right. But it was also overcoming that feeling and wondering for the first time if maybe everybody else were the ones that had it wrong.

The album finished and Alex moved the needle off the vinyl and stopped the turntable’s steady rotation.

“Hey Alex,” Claire said to fill the silence.

“Yeah?”

“You ever think about this whole soul mate thing?”

Alex joined her on the bed and pushed her over so there was room. Claire grumbled about having to share, but she moved over easily. They’d had a million sleepovers and Alex was not the kind of person you asked to sleep on the ground. She was annoying enough in the mornings as it was. Alex stared up at the ceiling like Claire was doing and Claire wondered if she saw anything there. Claire was watching a spider in the corner, slowly weaving its web.

“Sure. Who hasn’t?” Alex said. “Probably not as much as you. With Dean and Cas and everything.”

“You’re not supposed to know about that.”

“You are all literally the worst at keeping secrets,” Alex said. Claire elbowed her and Alex elbowed back. “Besides, they’re relationship is pretty much how Jody psyched herself into dating again, so I guess that’s something.”

“How’s that going?” Claire asked. She felt Alex shrug.

“Wasn’t great at first. She met someone at a police retreat though. They have sort of a not exclusive long distance thing going. I think Jody likes her though.”

“Do you like her?”

“Who cares if I like her? I’m only going to be around until I’m eighteen.”

“Jody cares,” Claire pointed out, because she knew Jody did. Jody cared a hell of a lot about Alex. It was obvious how fiercely Jody thought of Alex as her own and it made Claire jealous in a way she found hard to express. It wasn’t that Dean and Cas didn’t love her—sometimes she thought maybe too much—it was just that Claire already had parents. They would never be that for her. They were family in every way possible, but Claire already had a mom and dad, even if they were dead now.

“She’s nice,” Alex said at last, hesitating over the words. “Maybe too nice. I don’t know. Ever get the feeling people are too good to be true?”

“No,” Claire said. She could feel Alex shrink slightly at that and she didn’t understand why. “That’s kind of what I like about people. Take them as they come, and you don’t have expectations. Labels, that’s what pisses me off.”

“There’s nothing wrong with labels.”

“Unless you don’t fit them,” Claire pointed out. She sighed. “I don’t think I want to know who my soul mate is.”

Alex sat up.

“You don’t mean…”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“Does Ben know?”

“No.”

“What about your uncles? Do they know?”

“I haven’t exactly been talking about it, Alex,” said Claire. “Besides, I just want to talk it out first. you’re good at arguing, try to talk me out of it.”

Alex hesitated a few seconds and then her face seemed to clear.

“I think you should do it.”

“Reverse psychology. Weak start.”

“No I seriously think you should do it. Me too.”

“Really?” Claire asked, and she could hear the hope in her voice. Because she didn’t want to make the choice alone, as much as she knew this was a choice that needed to be made for oneself.

“Yeah. Really.”

“Do you…” Claire took a deep breath. “Do you think Ben would want to do that? Say screw destiny and see if it works out with us, soul mates or not? Do you think he’d go with us? I just love him so much, Alex. I don’t want a stupid mark on my chest to change that.”

Alex was silent. Claire sat up and tried to read the expression on her friends face but she was getting nothing. After a few seconds Alex smiled at her, and there was something off about it, but Claire couldn’t place it.

“He’d be crazy to want anyone else,” she said. Claire wanted to ask what was wrong but Alex insisted on going to sleep before she could get a word out. Alex was like that sometimes. She had trouble letting people see her vulnerable. Claire got up and turned off the light and then crawled back into bed and gave Alex a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder.

***Several Days Later***

“It’s just a question, Ben. Jesus.”

“You can’t just ask me to do something like this,” Ben whispered back. “My mom would kill me.”

“Lisa wouldn’t care.”

“Yeah, well too bad I have two moms, then,” Ben snapped. He composed himself, taking a deep breath. “You know I have nothing against anyone that doesn’t end up with their soul mates. You know that. But that’s just… Claire that’s just not the way I was raised.”

“What?” Claire said in disbelief. “What does that even mean, not the way you were raised?”

“I mean I’m not just going to erase my soul mate from my chest. Do you get how selfish that is? Here’s this person that’s been destined for you and you just ignore them because you think you know better than God?”

Claire couldn’t speak she was so surprised and angry at what Ben was saying.

“So you really buy into this whole destiny thing? You think everyone should just hook up with their soul mates and that’s that?”

“I get that there are people out there with dead soul mates. Or with soul mates that have hurt them. Of course they deserve a second chance, I’m not saying there’s anything unnatural about that. But shouldn’t you give your actual soul mate a shot first?”

“So you would be okay if it wasn’t me?” Claire demanded. Ben looked away from her and she could see the hesitance on his face. “You love me.”

“Of course I do,” Ben said without missing a beat. For once the ease with which Ben said he loved her didn’t put her at ease. “But Claire, how many people end up with their high school sweethearts?”

“Who cares?” Claire shouted. “Maybe we don’t end up together, but don’t you want to make that choice for yourself? Not have it dictated by something beyond your control?”

“It’s God’s will for us,” Ben said.

“What God?” Claire snapped bad. “Because if He exists, I really hope he’s got more pressing concerns than which humans bump uglies with each other.”

“You’re upset,” Ben said, obviously trying to justify what Claire was saying to himself.

“Oh, you just noticed?”

Ben stepped forward and made a motion to touch Claire, but Claire took a step back. He rescinded his hand. Claire hoped he would leave soon, because she could feel something big and empty opening up inside her and she didn’t want Ben around to see the waterworks.

“I’m going to go,” Ben said after about thirty seconds of tense silence. “But Claire, don’t do this. You know how they treat people without the tattoos. You don’t have to be with your soul mate if you don’t want to. Just don’t paint a target on your back.”

So this was what it felt like to have your heart broken.

***The Next Week***

Claire and Alex were technically supposed to be in Chicago for a Radiohead concert, but really it was the closest place to safely get the illicit shots they need in order to prevent their soul mate’s name from appearing on their chests. It was just illegal enough to make them both giddy with adrenaline, even with undercurrents of a deeper sense of rebellion keeping them grounded enough to realize some of the implications of what was about to happen. They held each other’s hands through the process.

It was strange. Claire didn’t feel different afterwards. She guessed that was part of the whole point, though.

It was just after that when it all went to hell.

Looking back, Claire thought she should have been able to see it. But when Alex looked at her after they left the back alley doctor, and then stopped her so she could press her lips against Claire’s, Claire felt nothing but shock.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Claire hissed, pushing her away. Alex froze, her face locking into an impassive mask.

“I was just…”

“You were just what?” Claire demanded. She could feel tears start to form at the corner of her eyes. “I thought you were my friend.”

“I am,” Alex said, a little bit of emotion beginning to break through. “I guess I thought since we both… both of us…”

“You thought that Ben would break up with me and you could make a move,” Claire accused. Something a little like guilt flashed through Alex’s eyes. “I’m in love with someone else, I’m still dating someone else! Where the fuck do you get off kissing me?”

“Ben didn’t…”

“No. He didn’t.”

“Claire, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—“

“Save it,” Claire said. She tightened her fists and looked away. “Take me home.”

“Claire…”

“Take. Me. Home.”

***Later That Same Day***

“What the bloody hell happened to you?”

Oh great. Crowley was home.

“Nothing,” Claire said, patting Growley as he bumped his head against her shin.

“Nothing has you looking like you just spent the last hour crying your eyes out?” Crowley said with eyebrows raised.

“I don’t really want to talk about it with you,” Claire said back. Crowley frowned.

“Just because I’m your fake adoptive father doesn’t mean I don’t give good advice,” he said, sounding insulted. Claire had no idea how to extricate herself from having wounded his pride. She could see by his face he was now determined to talk to her.

“You’re a crime lord.”

“And you’re a stroppy teenage girl. We all have faults,” Crowley pointed out. He patted the sofa next to him and rolled his eyes when Growley jumped up on it. “Not you, Growley. C’mon Claire. Let’s have a sit and chat. Tell uncle Crowley all your problems.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“A good portion of your college fund might be dependent on whether or not you do.”

“Oh God, fine,” Claire said slumping down onto the couch with her arms crossed. She tried to figure out where to start. “I got the shots today. The no soul mate ones.”

“Unsurprising.”

Claire felt her irritation rise.

“It turns out Alex is like in love with me or something and she kissed me.”

“Did you not see that one coming?” Crowley asked. Claire started glaring at him.

“And Ben thinks it’s a sin to get these shots, so he’s probably going to break up with me when he finds out I went through with it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all you have to say to that? My life is fucking unraveling and all you have to say is okay?”

Crowley patted Growley’s head once and then met Claire’s eyes, his expression entirely serious.

“Claire, I think it’s important that you understand that the only person who truly cares about and understands you and your needs is you. Friends, lovers, soul mates… they’ll all disappoint you at some point in your life. The key to it is to understand that they’re after the same things you are and use it against them.”

“Real cheery view of the world,” Claire said. Crowley shrugged.

“Love is a tool. Anyone who says it’s not doesn’t realize just how much damage they’re doing,” Crowley pointed out. “You figure out how it can be used against you and you neutralize the threat. You thought Alex just wanted to be your friend, well now you know she wants more. That doesn’t mean you can’t see her anymore, but it does mean you have to be aware at every moment what it is she wants. You have to factor that in. You love Ben, but he doesn’t see eye to eye with you on certain issues. Better to know now than later. That way you won’t one day murder him out of resentment.”

Claire stared at him.

“Should I be worried about Dean’s safety?”

“Please. I don’t love Dean Winchester,” said Crowley. Claire raised an eyebrow.

“Then why are you here? What exactly are you getting out of this whole arrangement besides free food and board?”

“No one’s trying to throw me in jail anymore for one.”

“Yeah, but you never got caught before,” Claire pointed out. Crowley shrugged. Claire swallowed. “Is it hard?”

“Is what hard?”

“To find out your soul mate already had someone else?” Claire said, looking down. “Ben says I’m selfish for not wanting to know who it is. For not giving them a shot.”

“You’re asking a selfish person whether or not what you’re doing is selfish. Excellent strategy,” Crowley said. Claire decided she was done talking at this point and just recrossed her arms in mild annoyance. “For what it’s worth, Dean and I would never have worked out. He’s out of his mind for that dumb veterinarian and the crazy ones… they’re good for a fling but they’re really not relationship material.”

“Have you ever even had a relationship?” Claire said. Crowley just smiled at her.

“Have to find someone good enough for me first, don’t I?” he said. Claire couldn’t help snorting a little at that one.

Crowley got up to go do something on his computer and Claire stayed on the couch, petting the dog and thinking over the events of the past few weeks for the umpteenth time.


	10. Chapter 10

Claire was happy that whatever distance there had been between her uncles was over, and that Cas was now a constant fixture at Dean’s apartment again. It was just that sometimes the two of them got a little wrapped up in each other and it was hard to break through the fragile way they looked at each other to tell them exactly what had happened between her and Alex. Cas asked every once in a while if something was wrong, and Claire had almost told him a dozen times, but she’d always let it go last second. It had been a long while since she’d seen Cas smile so much and she didn’t want to weigh him down with her issues or her decisions.

She supposed she’d have to tell people before her eighteenth birthday that she’d gotten the shots. It would be pretty obvious what had happened when she turned eighteen and the spot over her heart stayed blank. Luckily, it wasn’t for months so she had time.

Speaking of time, it was about time she got her ass to school. Claire tugged her boots over her feet before making the walk to the kitchen where she could make herself some toast. She stopped for a moment when she saw Cas reading something on Dean’s computer over his shoulder, leaning forward slightly so he could turn and say something that made Dean roll his eyes. Claire was happy for them. She really was. It was just that considering the several fights she and Ben had been getting into lately, it felt more and more to her that she was never going to have something like that. How many people didn’t automatically gravitate to their soul mate? How many fewer actually wanted the stigma of dating someone that wasn’t supposed to be theirs? And out of everyone that was left, how many of them would even like Claire, let alone something as tenuous and unknowable as love? Dean and Cas were the exception, not the rule.

“Aren’t you two supposed to be on the run from CPS?” Claire said, shoving two pieces of toast into the toaster.

“We decided to say fuck it,” Dean said, ignoring Cas’ glare for swearing in front of Claire. “Besides, times they are a changing.”

“Hopefully,” Castiel said, sounding a lot less cheerful than Dean did on the topic of acceptance. “We’re being careful Claire. You won’t be taken from us.”

“No, I know,” Claire said. Her toast tasted like nothing. She ended up leaving half of it on her plate. “Gonna be late. I’ll see you guys tonight.”

“Have fun at school,” Cas called after her. Claire managed a wave and then was out the door.

***Two Weeks Later***

Claire had been dreading this for ages. Krissy was the first of her friends that was turning eighteen, and she had only just walked into school when Krissy had practically pounced on her to fill her in on the details of her soul mate.

“Her name is Magda. I looked her up and she’s a new transfer here. She’s in foster care, and apparently she’s really quiet.”

“Oh,” Claire said blankly. Krissy looked weirdly happy. Not that Krissy wasn’t happy, it was just that usually her happiness manifested on a level that Claire was more comfortable: unrestrained sarcasm. This was… different.

Magda ate lunch with them that day and Claire watched as she and Krissy exchanged shy glances, Magda’s much more hesitant than Krissy’s. Claire was in one of Magda’s classes and before that day she was certain she had never heard her talk. Claire knew she was in foster care, since she’d seen her waiting outside the school guidance counselor’s office before her a couple of times, and nobody willingly went to see Zach.

By the end of the day, the school was buzzing about the two newest soul mates and everyone that knew Krissy had stopped to congratulate her about it. Krissy seemed to take a lot of it in stride, but mostly she ignored everyone else in her constant attempts to get Magda to talk to her. It wasn’t that Magda seemed unresponsive either, but she certainly seemed to be a little overwhelmed as far as Claire could tell. It was when Krissy had decided she needed to go speak to her parents that she finally left Magda alone and Claire could talk to her.

“Hey Magda,” she said. Magda glanced at her and then away. “How are you doing with all of this?”

“I’m okay,” Magda said softly, a look of sadness beginning to cross her face. She glanced away from Claire, looking down. “I don’t deserve this.”

“Deserve what?” Claire asked, watching as Magda began to rock back and forth slightly. Magda glanced back at her and swallowed.

“Sometimes I can hear people’s voices when they aren’t talking,” she said. “I can hear you. I know what you’ve done. How worried you are. Your fears.”

Claire’s breath caught and she looked at Magda again with new eyes. There weren’t many that could still access old magic. The world had become a place almost devoid of it, the tattoos on people’s chests a relic of a time in which the world had been a much different place. The few who could access this old magic were rarely treated well, but Claire suspected from the way that Magda was rocking that her parents had been even less accepting than usual.

“Krissy shouldn’t be with someone so broken,” Magda said, her eyes straying off to where Krissy was finishing her phone conversation. “I don’t know how to tell her that. She’s so nice to me Claire. I know that you don’t believe in soul mates, not really. I can hear it in your head. But she’s just so nice to me, I don’t want to…”

“Magda, you’re okay,” Claire said, reaching out to lay a steadying hand on the girl’s shoulder. Magda couldn’t look at her.

“I told you because you need to tell her,” Magda said at last, as Krissy walked closer. “I’m not strong enough to. She deserves better.”

Krissy appeared only moments later, her hand laid across the back of Magda’s chair. It was hard to miss the way she kept sneaking glances at Magda, the complete infatuation that had so overcome Claire’s friend. So Claire didn’t say a word, no matter how Magda looked to her to bring it up to Krissy.

Then again, Krissy wasn’t someone who abandoned people because they were complicated to be friends with. Or more. Claire had a feeling she could lay every fact in front of Krissy and her only response would be “So?”

Magda did end up having the strength to tell Krissy everything about a week after they had first known they were soul mates, and just as Claire suspected, Krissy didn’t care even a small amount. If anything, it had made her more protective and inclusive of Magda, and Claire was surprised to see how genuine the build up in their relationship seemed. Even Magda’s small mistakes in responding to thoughts instead of words didn’t anger Krissy, unlike most other people that spoke to Magda. They really did seem… suited to each other. Everything a soul mate was supposed to be for you.

Watching their relationship left Claire conflicted when it came to her own choice of not knowing who her soul mate was. On the one hand, she still disliked the idea of her options being limited so thoroughly, but on the other she wasn’t sure what she was giving up by not knowing. She didn’t want to be forced into a relationship that she didn’t want, and this was the easiest way to avoid that, but would it be better to know and then choose later? On the other hand, how would she know whether or not she actually liked anyone who’s name showed up when she was at a stage in her life where she was both desperate to regain the strong friendship she’d recently lost and antipathetic to the idea of soul mates themselves? Claire knew after her parents’ deaths she had used Alex as a guide for rebuilding what normal looked like, and without her she felt lost in many ways. Krissy knew who she was by herself, but… maybe Claire didn’t. It was all about identity and as soon as a tattoo shows up on your chest, part of yours is defined, whether you like it or not.

So Claire didn’t say anything to anyone, and Magda sometimes spent time with her when she was especially quiet. She wasn’t Alex, but it was nice to have someone she had no secrets from again, even if with Magda it wasn’t exactly by choice.

***One Month Later***

“Claire?” asked Cas, standing by her bedroom door. Claire put down the book she had been reading and looked up. She could have groaned when she saw Alex was next to him. Unlike Dean, Cas had not picked up on the fact that she and Alex were not friends anymore. It didn’t strike him as unusual not to talk to someone for a while and then start up again, and while he was very smart, reading the subtleties of relationships was rarely his strong suit. “Alex came to see you.”

“I can see that,” Claire said, sitting up. Castiel frowned at her and then looked back at Alex. It took him a good five seconds to realize he should disappear, but once he had he did so quickly. Claire waited for Alex to start speaking.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you, and it was a shitty thing to do whether Ben had broken up with you or not. You never led me on, and I guess I just… I was just really hoping it would work out. But I shouldn’t have done it.”

Claire swallowed and looked down at the floor.

“Okay.”

“And I miss you. So fucking much,” Alex continued. She didn’t move any closer and Claire appreciated that because she needed space to think. Because, God, it was so good to see Alex again. “I… if I wrecked everything with us, well… that would really suck. Because you’re my best friend.”

Claire bit her lip and nodded. Alex seemed to deflate, and it was clear she thought Claire didn’t think much of her apology.

“That’s what I got,” Alex concluded. She started to turn around, and Claire made her decision fast.

“Hey!” she said, standing up quickly. “I missed you too, okay?”

Alex let out a small surprised noise when Claire pulled her in for a hug, squeezing her tight. But she was quick to return the favor, and it was a long time before either of them let go. When they did Alex’s eyes were perhaps a bit brighter than they normally were, but Claire wasn’t going to call her on going teary eyed, especially since her own weren’t the driest at the moment.

“So,” Claire said when they’d finally stopped hugging. “I guess this means you and me have to refigure out the friend thing.”

“I know,” Alex admitted, looking down. “Sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry about that part,” Claire said. “I am pretty awesome.”

Alex rolled her eyes and then sat down at the edge of Claire’s bed like old times. She pulled up her feet to sit crosslegged and looked thoughtfully off into space.

“I did have an idea,” she said after a while. “You won’t like it.”

Claire waited a bit for Alex to go on.

“My birthday’s coming up soon,” she said. “And I can get the shots reversed.”

“You want to do that?” Claire asked hesitantly.

“I want to be over you so we can go back to being friends,” Alex said sincerely.

“I don’t mind-“

“I know you don’t mind about the feelings bit. But I do. I’m always going to hold out hope if I don’t find a way to move on. This is a way to move on.”

Claire frowned at the logic and tried to get across what she figured Alex needed to hear so that she could make the decision without feeling pressured.

“Whatever you pick, we’ll figure out how to be friends again,” Claire said. “And I won’t judge you either way. It’s your choice, and there’s… There’s nothing wrong with being with your soul mate, as long as that’s what you want. Just don’t do it because you think I won’t be there if it gets hard. And if your soul mate’s not good enough for you, I will fuck them up.”

Alex laughed at that and the sound of it seemed to clear out the myriad of emotions that had been catching in Claire’s chest for the weeks they hadn’t been speaking to each other. It was the feeling of being at peace with where she was at, and suddenly the confusion and the search for herself seemed less a pressing and terrifying issue, and more a matter that could be figured out at her leisure.

So Claire and Alex gossiped about their respective schools, and then they watched a movie while Growley sat between them on the couch and looked at them with sorrowful eyes every time they stopped petting him. Crowley would be pissed if he knew they let his dog on the couch, since he was supposed to be trained not to, but Claire figured there was no reason for him to know, and it helped ease any strain that might have bubbled up between the two of them.

When Alex left, Claire knew they weren’t back to normal, but they would get there. All she could feel at that was a blinding relief.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like... sorry I haven't updated this in a while. I'm going to finish it, so here's the second to last chapter. Hope you enjoy!

Alex did end up deciding to have her shots reversed before her eighteenth birthday, and she texted Claire after the appointment was over to let her know. Claire had sent her back a thumbs up emoji, and thought about two other upcoming birthdays.

Ben hadn’t taken it well when she’d come clean to him about getting the shots. They were still together, but it felt in almost every way like a technicality. In her more bitter moments, Claire wondered if the only reason Ben hadn’t left her yet was because he knew she wouldn’t give him the time of day even if she did end being his soul mate after he ditched her.

His birthday was about a week after Alex’s, so Claire decided not to worry about it. By which she meant she spent the entire week leading up to Alex’s birthday complaining to an increasingly unsympathetic Crowley. Why Crowley was spending so much time in their apartment recently was beyond her, but if he was going to be there, he was going to have to deal with her bitching.

Cas and Dean, having officially and almost obnoxiously reconnected, were too far in the love bubble at the moment to pick up on Claire’s worrying. They were always all over each other, and Claire wondered why Cas was even bothering to still rent his crappy apartment anymore when he moved almost all of his stuff back into Dean’s room. Love makes ya stupid, she guessed.

Okay, sure, whenever she spared a moment to think about it, she was almost unnaturally happy for them. But still.

Crowley seemed to share her sentiment when it came to the lovebirds, and was perfectly willing to binge watch bad tv shows with Claire as she counted down the days to Alex’s birthday. Growley always barked at the screen whenever another dog showed up, and Crowley would lovingly make fun of the “goddamned stupid mutt” for it.

It was about the day before Alex’s birthday when Claire got back from another day of paying enough attention in her second semester senior classes to hopefully not have her admissions to colleges rescinded that she saw Crowley standing by the front door with all of his possessions tidily packed away and wearing a large flower print shirt and long khaki pants.

“Is this a joke?” she asked him, unable to keep herself from staring. Crowley started when he realized she was there, then forced his usual smug smile.

“I was waiting for you,” he said. “I figured it was best that you say my goodbyes for me. You know me, not one for sentiment.”

“Uh huh,” Claire said skeptically. “What does that mean?”

“I have, over the past few years, managed to amass more money than I could spend in several lifetimes,” said Crowley. “And as that happened, I’ve realized… I hate my work.”

“You what?” said Claire, frowning at him.

“The politics, the keeping my underlings in line, the constant threat of mutiny… I hate it,” said Crowley confidently. “It’s how I grew up, it was my life. And then I lived with all of you emotional, blithering morons for years, and you’ve ruined my standards. You have no idea the disadvantage it is not just to expect loyalty, but to expect the people around you to genuinely care about you.”

“So…” said Claire hesitantly, starting to grasp where he might be going with this.

“So, I’m leaving,” said Crowley. “I’ve got a nice place picked out in a sunny country with no extradition to the good old U.S. of A. I have divorce papers, signed, sealed, and delivered as a wedding gift to the twittering love birds, and I’ve made sure that every legal penny I own has been put into a fund for you to inherit after you turn eighteen. After all, what kind of adoptive father would I be otherwise?”

Crowley seemed rather impressed with himself. Claire just stared at him.

“So you’re really leaving?” she said, almost surprised by how upset she sounded. If she was surprised, Crowley was shocked, though he did a good job hiding it. He patted her cheek condescendingly and smirked when Claire knocked his hand away.

“There, there,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else to kill brain cells with. Dean is rather fond of soap operas.”

Claire hugged Crowley before she could think better of it, and felt a little better when she saw what was perhaps the first genuine smile she had ever seen on his face. It was small, and if she had blinked she might have missed it, but it was real.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked him. Before Crowley could answer, the front door opened and a woman walked in. She looked at Crowley with raised eyebrows and then her eyes flickered to the suitcases.

“You think you need all that?” she asked, her voice low and smooth, and deeply unimpressed.

“Sorry to inform you you’re not running away with a light packer,” Crowley snarked back at her. She crossed her arms and half smiled at him, while he looked pleased by her attention. Claire cleared her throat. “Oh yes. Claire, meet Billie. She’s my… girlfriend.”

“Something like that,” Billie confirmed. “As long as we don’t miss our flight.”

Claire’s jaw dropped.

“You’re dating her?” she asked him. “But she’s so out of your league!”

“Have I mentioned recently just how much of your college fund I personally am paying?” asked Crowley again in annoyance. Claire shrugged at him, and his irritation softened. “I’m going to miss you squirt. Don’t let the choirboy or man in blue screw things up again, will you?”

And then Crowley was gone, his suitcases and his dog gone with him before Claire could blink. She sat at home thinking about it for the longest time before Dean finally came home.

“Where’s the couch potato and the hellhound?” he asked, surprised to see the tv wasn’t on. “Did Crowley finally figure out new ways to embezzle money?”

“Uh, no,” said Claire. “He left.”

Dean froze.

“He what?”

“He left,” Claire repeated. “With his girlfriend. He said he was sick of his job and he wanted to retire someplace sunny. He said he’d already sent in divorce papers, and put aside my college fund, and then he left.”

Claire couldn’t quite place the expression on Dean’s face. She expected indifference or relief or surprise or something other than the strange mix of melancholy and hurt she saw instead.

“Wow. I mean, I guess I knew that was coming but, Jesus,” said Dean. “He didn’t even tell me. You know I bought dog food the other day? Some stupid fancy brand because apparently Growley has indigestion and stupid Crowley loves his dumb dog so fucking much-“

Dean sighed, and cut himself off.

“Sorry. Not supposed to swear in front of you,” he said. “What do you want for dinner? Think we should surprise Cas and order in pizza? Or maybe pick up burgers and fries and shakes or something?”

Claire saw right through his attempt to change the topic.

“Oh my god,” she said in quiet realization. “You actually liked him.”

Dean didn’t deny it, though she could see him cringe at having it pointed out to him so bluntly. Claire marveled at the fact that Dean had managed to keep the fact that maybe he had something in the way of feelings for Crowley under wraps from… well, everyone she was pretty sure.

“How long?” she asked next.

“When he made sure I found Cas,” said Dean quietly. He shrugged at her, before going on. “But it never really mattered, because I’m already done, Claire. Cas is it for me, y’know? I love him so much I don’t know what the fuck to do with it most days.”

It struck Claire very suddenly that that was what she wanted, and why the idea of a soul mate had so repulsed her. She wanted someone someday to love her so much they’d choose her over a potential soul mate. They’d choose her when it didn’t make sense and when things got hard and when destiny itself seemed to be in the way.

“Well, good,” she said out loud. “I don’t like it when you and Cas fight. Like really fight, I mean.”

“Yeah, me neither,” said Dean with a sigh.

They both turned when the door opened behind Dean to let Cas in, who was holding their mail, which Dean had forgotten to retrieve, as per usual. Castiel was frowning at an envelope and passed it over to Dean wordlessly. Dean opened it to see it was divorce papers for his and Crowley’s marriage and on the back was a neatly scrawled “Bye, boys -C”.

***The Next Day***

Claire had been waiting all day for Alex to text her during school who her soul mate was, and had grown increasingly worried when no text came through. As soon as the final bell rang, Claire schmoozed a ride off of Lucas to Jody’s house to see what was up with Alex and make sure everything was okay.

She got her second sign that something was wrong when Jody didn’t immediately invite her inside. Jody had said more than once that Claire was always welcome in her house, and Claire was more than grateful for what Jody had done for her over the years, which was another reason why her current behavior was so mystifying.

“I don’t think now’s a good time,” said Jody to Claire, though her eyes were sympathetic. “I just-“

“It’s okay, mom,” said Alex, appearing behind her. Jody turned around and looked at her, and they did the silent communication that Claire remembered she had been able to do with her dad before she died. After a few seconds, Jody moved to let Claire in and she slipped past the sheriff so she could talk to Alex.

She waited until they got to Alex’s room before asking about it.

“So?” Claire asked first, trying to lead Alex into it. Alex looked down. “C’mon, they can’t be that bad. It’s not that shitty ex you had freshman year is it?”

“Uh, no,” Alex mumbled. “It’s… not a viable option.”

“Who is it?” Claire asked again. Alex sighed, and Claire crossed her arms. “Alex.”

“You’re sure you want to see?” Alex said, looking Claire directly in the eyes. Claire frowned, but nodded, and Alex carefully moved her shirt down until a name was visible. ‘Claire’ was written across her chest in the spot right over her heart. Alex let her neckline fall back into place.

“Oh,” said Claire dumbly.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” said Alex. “I didn’t want things to be weird.”

“How are things not going to be weird?” Claire asked. “Sorry, I’m just… I didn’t expect this.”

“Yeah. It’s not super convenient for me either,” said Alex, laughing a little bitterly. “So much for getting over you, huh?”

Claire twiddled her thumbs as she took it all in.

“So… what are we going to do?” she asked, looking up at Alex. Alex shrugged.

“The friendship thing,” she said. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

Claire hesitated, but shook her head.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Alex, going for a smile. “I mean, people find each other. Your uncles. Mom and Donna. I’m in a better place okay? I know I’m going to be okay.”

“Even if we’re not… like that,” said Claire. “You know that I love you right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Feelings. Gross,” said Alex, rolling her eyes. “We’ll always be good, Claire. No matter what.”

***The Next Monday***

Claire texted Ben immediately after her conversation with Alex that they needed to talk as soon as the could. That happened to be Monday at school, since Ben was spending the weekend doing some sort of theater thing that he hadn’t told Claire about because they been speaking so sporadically recently.

Seeing him in the hallway was tough, but not as tough as Claire thought it was going to be. She still loved him, but it wasn’t the same anymore. Not after weeks of fighting and Claire questioning why they were even together in the first place if Ben just saw her as practice for the person he was really going to end up with.

“What did you want to talk about?” Ben asked, gentle with her as ever. Claire stepped forward and kissed him lightly on the lips before taking his hand.

“I think we should break up,” she said. He stared at her.

“What?”

“Your birthday is next week,” said Claire. “And you should know… there is no chance that my name is going to be the one that shows up.”

“How could you know that?” asked Ben, looking deeply upset. Claire looked at him until he got it. “Unless… Wow. That’s incredible. All these fights about you thinking I’m going to leave you for my soul mate and you do thing you yelled at me for thinking of doing-“

“I’m not leaving you for her,” said Claire slowly. “I’m leaving because I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m not in love with anyone, and I’m tired of trying to make people happy. Are you still in love with me? Honestly?”

Ben couldn’t meet her eyes after that question, and that was answer enough.

“Who is it?” he asked after the silence had stretched so long, Claire had almost gotten up to leave him alone with his thoughts.

“Alex.”

“Right, of course,” he said. “Who the fuck else?”

Ben almost never swore, and Claire flinched to hear him do so now. She took a deep breath and tried to explain herself.

“I’m doing this for me,” she said. “But I’m doing it for you, too. So you don’t have to be the bad guy when you figure out who your soul mate is. We’re over, and I’m not starting something with Alex. But I just wanted you to know I’m not going to hold it against you, as long as you’re happy.”

Ben took a deep breath to steady himself, and the anger hadn’t quite left his eyes, but something like acceptance was there too.

“So this is it, huh?” he said to her. Claire nodded. “Have a nice life, Claire.”

There would be time to try to make friends later. For now, Claire was satisfied to let him walk away before locking herself in a stall in one of the bathrooms and crying out the sadness and frustration of a dead relationship. Somewhere in the middle of it, there was a knock on the door, and Claire opened it to find Magda looking at her sympathetically. She sat with Claire until the crying stopped, and promised not to tell Krissy she’d caught Claire acting like such a wuss.

And strangely enough, after crying Claire felt much better about everything.

Her uncles were going to be getting married again at city hall the next weekend, and they had been insufferable about insisting she dress up for it and Dean made Sam set up a bachelor party for him because he “deserved one after all of this bullshit, Sammy”. She and Alex were in a weird place, but she had confirmation that they would always be best friends, and Claire was starting to feel like Magda was another person she could count on as a friend for life. She was going to college and didn’t have to worry about money because of what Crowley had done for her. She had ended an emotionally draining relationship that neither she nor Ben was getting any happiness out of anymore.

It wasn’t hard to imagine a way in which everything could work out for the better, and like every other senior in her school, the future stretched out ahead of Claire with all of its possibilities.


	12. Chapter 12

Claire couldn’t help frowning into the bathroom mirror.

She’d enlisted Dean’s help in braiding it into a respectable “updo”, and Charlie had helped her pick slacks and a blouse “appropriate” for a bridesmaid, since Jody and Donna had said they didn’t give a fuck what anyone wore and wouldn’t be assigning a handy guide of what exactly everyone in the wedding party was supposed to wear.

I look fine, Claire thought to herself. It was just weird, using her old room at Dean and Cas’ place after officially moving out when she’d gone to college. She’d been staying the past few weeks while she tried to find a job (why had she gone for degree in mythology and magic, again?). They’d been nothing if not accommodating. They’d also been babying her past her low tolerance levels for that kind of thing.

She startled when she heard a loud knock on the bathroom door.

“What?” she yelled, knowing that whether it was Cas or Dean on the other side of the door, they would be rolling their eyes at her saying that.

“Do you need help?” came Cas’ much lower voice.

“I’m fine,” Claire said, but she opened the door anyway and walked out. “Ready for a wedding.”

“You certainly are,” said Cas, as though she were six and playing dress up. But Claire let it go for the moment, because maybe the soft way he looked so quietly proud of her made her feel good. “Then again, I’ve always found that you’re ready for anything you set your mind to.”

“And you’re full of cheese,” said Claire sarcastically, hugging Cas and being careful not to smudge her makeup onto his suit.

“Jimmy and Amelia would have been so proud of you Claire,” said Cas, squeezing her gently before letting her go. Claire tried to swallow the knot in her throat when he said that. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” muttered Claire. She had vague plans of doing a lot more research into old magic along with Magda and Krissy, but that was more of a side project until they could get more funds (anonymously donated money from certain islands was going unused, partly at an annoyed Castiel’s insistence that they weren’t going to use Crowley’s blood money for anything… except Claire’s college fund, because Dean and Cas had legal costs up to their ears after they went public with the scam they’d pulled on child services).

Times were changing, and that was a good thing. But they had a long way to go before old magic was something that could be questioned and explored instead of mostly ignored if not actively rejected. A long way before Magda was accepted by society, and a long way before the stigma was removed from not ending up with one’s soul mate. Claire wanted to be part of that, and that had been the focus of her education for the past four years.

“You will,” said Cas, as though it were a given. He checked his watch. “You and Dean need to get going for the practice run or whatever it is bridesmaids and best men do before a wedding.”

Claire smiled, remembering Cas and Dean’s second marriage at City Hall, in which they’d invited Sam, Claire, Charlie, Amelia, Jo and Benny, and Jody, signed a piece of paper, and then had a dinner party at their house. Jody was going for something a little more fancy, but Claire didn’t see much of a difference really. Either way it was all about love, and that’s the way it should be.

Dean had nearly had an aneurysm when Jody had asked him to be her best man (after Alex had denied being Maid of Honor because “I’m not old mom, Jesus. Ask one of your friends.”). Claire smiled at remembering the way Jody had recounted that story as Dean drove them to the wedding, trying not to get nervous. She was looking forward to seeing Alex. She’d been so busy with premed the past four years that Claire hardly ever got a chance to talk to her.

“You’re not even going to be doing anything. You’ll literally just be standing off to the side,” Claire said, when Dean checked to make sure that his tie was on right for the third time. Dean pointed his finger at her as though he was about to tell her off, grimaced, and then dropped it.

“Shut up,” he muttered. “I just want to make sure everything goes good for Jody. She deserves it.”

“Yeah, she does,” agreed Claire. “But I don’t think the tipping point in quality will be whether you do a good job at standing.”

“I think you underestimate my standing abilities,” Dean snarked back, looking a little more at ease anyway.

They teased each other back and forth until they arrived at the park that Jody and Donna had picked out to get married in.

***A Few Hours Later***

If you asked Claire, she absolutely didn’t cry.

The platform Jody and Donna said their vows on was set up so that they were lit perfectly by the late afternoon light (Claire was sure that they would have some fantastic friggin’ photos) and they’re faces had been bathed in gold when the whole pledging love to each other had gone down. Some of the “pledging love to each other” had been a little rough around the edges, but it was all the more romantic for the accidental “oh fuck, I can’t believe this is happening” added in partway through Donna’s vows.

Claire and Alex hadn’t had time to talk before the ceremony started, but partway through Alex had reached out to her and Claire had taken her hand like the used to when they were younger. Claire squeezed tighter when Alex went to move her hand and they stayed like that for the rest of the ceremony.

After that it had all been chaos as everyone tried to make it to their cars so they could get to the reception. Claire had had to go find Dean so that she could get the keys, and he could ride over with Cas instead of her. She knew they’d spend half the night slow dancing with each other and telling anyone who would listen how they’d reunited after years apart at a wedding (because they were that kind of couple sometimes, and hey after all the shit they’d been through they kinda had the right to go on sentimentally about their love story).

The reception had snack food that anyone could eat at any time, and a dance floor that was always open with everyone dancing ridiculously in the middle of it to whatever music was there. Claire had taken a wrong turn and missed the first dance, but when she found Alex she managed to see a video of it. They both smiled over the video.

“How have you been Alex?” asked Claire after they’d finished that and had taken to watching everyone else mill about.

“Exhausted,” said Alex. “There’s this weird thing when you take premed. They assume you don’t need sleep.”

“How awful of them,” said Claire, nudging her elbow against Alex’s. Alex rolled her eyes.

“And how’s the crusade to save the world?” she asked.

“Less of a crusade,” admitted Claire. “More of a weekend street corner protest with three people. We’re working on it.”

Alex nodded, taking it at face value. She was good at neither saying Claire’s doubts were bullshit or indicating that they were founded. It was just the way things were right now, but that didn’t mean-

“For what it’s worth,” said Alex with a smile. “I believe in you.”

Claire felt something flutter inside her stomach at the words and she sat still a moment in shock as all the good feelings she remembered from spending her teen years with Alex came flooding back to her. It was enough to push her to her feet.

“I’m- I should really- I’ll go get us something to drink,” Claire stuttered, leaving Alex watching after her in confusion as she scurried away. Because she didn’t like Alex that way right? Hadn’t that kind of been the point over the past few years?

Except she really missed Alex. And even if there hadn’t been something there before, maybe the time apart had-

Claire’s train of thought was cut off when she dodged in front of a badly dancing Sam and caused him to trip over his own feet. Claire managed not to get taken down, but another woman who had been dancing nearby was knocked over as Sam went crashing to the ground.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” said Sam to the pretty brunette woman he’d knocked over. She didn’t seem to hear him, and he put an arm on her shoulder and she looked up. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” said the woman, meanwhile signing to a friend she’d been dancing with that she was fine as well. Claire recognized her as Eileen, who Donna was good friends with. Claire had spent some time when both of then were working on handwriting invitations learning a little bit of sign language with her.

Claire smirked when she saw Eileen actually look at Sam and get a kind of look in her eye.

“I think you just swept me off my feet,” said Eileen, and damn that was smooth Claire thought to herself. She wondered if she’d ever seen her Uncle Sam turn that red before. Then she wondered if she’d seen her Uncle Sam show interest in anyone ever before (not including Amelia who she had never seen Sam treat as anything more than a friend anyway, since the end of their marriage predated her birth).

“Is there, uh- Can I make it up to you?” Sam asked, stuttering not entirely unlike Claire just had been with Alex. And if that wasn’t a punch in the gut as for as realization was concerned, Claire didn’t know what was.

“You could try,” said Eileen, good humor shining through her sarcasm. “Do you want to dance with me?”

“Well, I’ll leave you kids to it,” said Claire, signing her best approximation for Eileen’s benefit. She seemed to get it, because she stuck her tongue out at Claire when Sam wasn’t looking, and Claire smiled back at the two of them.

And then she made a beeline back to Alex.

“I thought you were getting something to drink-“ Alex said, completely confused.

“Do you want to go out sometime?”

Alex went silent.

“You mean like hanging out,” she hedged after a few seconds.

“No, I mean like a date. Like a real date,” said Claire. Alex stared at her.

“You’re not kidding.”

“I’m not kidding.”

Alex looked down at the floor, anger and something like hope warring on her face.

“Why now?” asked Alex. “You don’t like me like that, Claire. You never liked me like that. That was sort of the whole problem. So why now?”

“Because- because I feel different,” said Claire. Alex didn’t look convinced.

“You’re not just worried you won’t find someone-“

“I don’t give a fuck about the soul mate thing. I never did,” said Claire, instantly reading through Alex’s concerns. “I just… I felt something. When you were looking at me before, and you said you believed in me… I felt something. And I haven’t felt like that in a long time. And I’m not going to let the fact that it freaks me out a little that my name’s on your chest keep me from exploring that. As long as you want to.”

“You really…” Alex said, trailing off and swallowing. “Yeah. Let’s… let’s do that.”

“Good,” said Claire, sitting down next to Alex again. Neither one of them spoke. “It’s awkward now isn’t it?”

Alex laughed, a little too high for it to be normal, but full of joy anyway.

“Yeah, it’s awkward,” she agreed. “Do you want to dance with me?”

Claire looked down at Alex’s hand which was reached out towards hers. She nodded after a moment.

“Yeah. I think that would be nice,” said Claire.

And for that night, it was the nicest thing in the world. Claire felt like she was walking on air, and even though she wasn’t sure it would go anywhere, that didn’t matter. Because all she could think was that she really, really hoped it worked out.

Dean ended up driving her and Cas back to the apartment at the end of the night, because the two of them had both had a little too much to drink. Cas dozed lightly against the passenger window as they drove home.

Claire wasn’t surprised when Dean looked at her in the rearview mirror.

“So, I saw you and Alex dancing together,” he mentioned casually. Claire nodded, and noticed when Dean smiled a little at that. “That’s nice. She had a crush on you forever.”

“I know,” said Claire, looking out the window with a smile of her own.

“You know, Cas and I got together at a wedding-“

“Oh my god, yes, I know!” said Claire, giggling a little when Dean made an offended noise.

“Well, see if I ever tell you a story again,” Dean muttered to himself, but he reached back to pat her knee so she knew he wasn’t mad. “I’m happy for you, kiddo.”

“Whatever, doofus,” said Claire, rolling her eyes. Then she cleared her throat and- “You know I love you guys, right?”

“We love you, too,” said Dean, sparing a soft smile for the dozing Cas.

“Good,” said Claire. “I know it wasn’t easy, after- I know everything was hard on both of you.”

“You have to know we’d do it again in a heartbeat,” said Dean. “Well, maybe not the dumb fighting part, but all of the rest of it- getting to see you grow up was worth it.”

Claire nodded, not trusting herself to speak after that.

“Take a nap kiddo,” said Dean kindly after she hadn’t spoken in a while. “We’ll be home, soon. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

Claire smiled and rested her head against the window like Cas was doing and let the engine lull her to sleep.

Nothing would ever be perfect, she reminded herself even in her contentment. But times were changing, and for the moment the people she loved were happy. She couldn’t really ask more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like, I get that pairing everyone up at the end is cliche, but I will spitefully write Saileen into as many of my fics as I can for probably the rest of time. Also... I just wanted a happy ending *shrugs*
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading it, and thank you to anyone who stuck it out to the end!


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